About 6 months or so ago I was invited to a sneak peek preview of a documentary called The Cove (which won an Oscar on Sunday). I didn't know much about it before seeing the film, however I can now tell you that it was one of the most compelling movies I've ever watched, and definitely the best documentary I've ever seen. The Cove chronicles the secret, horrific dolphin slaughter that takes place in Taiji, Japan where dolphins are herded and captured, then sold off to trainers to live out lives in captivity, places like Sea World and such. One dolphin can sell for over $200,000. Anyway, most dolphins don't get sold into captivity and instead are slaughtered mercilessly with spears and their meat is then sold secretly thoughout Japan. Dolphin meat is actually quite poisonous, though it frequently appears mismarked as other fish in Japanese supermarkets and is given out to young children in school for lunch. If you haven't seen this movie, you should. 

Fast forward to October 2009, The Cove's  associate producer Charles Hambleton hears through friends that Santa Monica's famed high end sushi spot The Hump is illegally serving whale.  Hambleton creates a tiny video camera  and two activists (one wearing the camera) go in to the restaurant for a lavish omakase (chef's choice) sushi dinner. Lo and behold, a waitress soon arrives with a dish of pale pink meat which she calls "whale." The two pretend to take bites but secretly toss the meat in a bag for analysis and as it turns out, the meat came from an endangered Sei whale. Charges are likely to be brought against the restaurant as early as this week. [NY Times]