Ric O'Barry
Richard " Ric " O'Barry ( born 1939 in Florida) is an American dolphin protectors, animal liberation activist and former dolphin trainer.
He began his career in the 1960s at the Miami Seaquarium where he began training the animals that were used in the television series Flipper. In the 1970s, he experienced a radical life change: Once during his tenures with the pinball sequences were filmed, the surviving of a total of five animals dolphins Susie and Kathy had become obsolete and were in Miami not used (see flipper ( dolphin ) ). Susie was sold to a European circus, where she died, according to the magazine Der Spiegel from pneumonia. For O'Barry this death was traumatizing: . " Next, I could only remember the fact that I have some days later in the Bahamas was in jail because I had tried to free dolphins there " - he in retrospect describes his emotional situation. He joined to mourn a days, sold his Porsche, became a vegetarian and traveled to India. Shortly after his return also died in his arms Kathy in Miami. While the levels of a disease as a cause writes; O'Barry describes the event as one of Kathy chosen suicide.
O'Barry lived from then on in Coconut Grove, Florida and founded the Earth Iceland Institute, which educates the public about dolphins in captivity and freed individual dolphins as far as possible in the 1970s, the Dolphin Project. He is the author of two books and several animal welfare organizations, including the WSPA and the WDSF, works as a consultant. He is also known theme for the award-winning film The Cove, (2009) of the dolphin hunt in Taiji ( Wakayama ). In 2011, O'Barry was "Earth" was honored with the German media prize "Bambi " in the category. Back in 1991, O'Barry was awarded the Conservation Award of the United Nations ( UNEP) for his involvement in the reintroduction of dolphins. He has repeatedly staged disruptions of events; approximately at the IWC conferences and the Oscar ceremony of his film.
Among many honors O'Barry was arrested for his work claims to be often monitored and repeatedly condemned. He has a lifelong ban on the IWC. The United States Navy accused him of cruelty to animals after they came upon surrendered for the reintroduction of O'Barry dolphins that had been used for military purposes in a supposedly poor condition. O'Barry paid a fine of 59,500 U.S. dollars because of illegal theft of dolphins, to which he was condemned by civil law in 1999, according to his own statement, in order not to waste any more money in legal battles. He denies that the animals would be in after their liberation in poor condition.
Work
- In thirty years of activism O'Barry was able to free 14 dolphins by its own account.
- Richard O'Barry: Behind the Dolphin Smile. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 1988, ISBN 0-912697-79-2.
- Richard O'Barry, Keith Coulborne: To Free a Dolphin. Renaissance Books, 2000, ISBN 1-58063-102-9.