An award-winning conservationist documentary-maker is asking for help from the diving and underwater-photography community in supplying video footage of killer whales.
Ran Levy-Yamamori, who runs EcoNature Productions, is currently filming a follow-up to his 2021 documentary Bridging Troubled Waters.
Based on the Israeli environmental educator and film-maker’s experiences in the Faroe Islands, that production followed him as he questioned how the infamous annual whale hunts could continue in the 21st century, while seeking to find a bridge between the hunters and anti-Grind campaigners in the outside world.
Levy-Yamamori has now turned his attention to the international dolphinarium trade, hoping to help persuade people in those countries where watching captive performing marine mammals remains popular – mainly in North America, Europe and Japan – to stay away from the shows.
As in Bridging Troubled Waters, Levy-Yamamori aims to take a non-confrontational approach in his efforts to win over hearts and minds, but says he needs footage of killer whales in the wild to contrast with the video he already has of captive animals in dolphinarium tanks.
He is hoping that coldwater diving videographers will get behind his project and donate their personal underwater or surface footage. In exchange they can expect a film credit and, he hopes, some satisfaction from helping to end the capture and exhibition of cetaceans.
If you can provide orca footage, please contact the film-maker at econature.prod@gmail.com
Also on Divernet: Cetacean defenders leap in after Lolita's lonely death, Captive dolphin ‘thrown out with bathwater', Failing Seaquarium gets 6-week ultimatum, Tooth damage bites for captive orcas
