Founded by Turkish actresses Özge Özder, Aslı Tandoğan and Ayça Varlıer, and supported by many member celebrities, “Bana Göz Kulak Ol” Association (BGKO) in Turkey prepared its first public awareness film, together with PToT Filmes, to stand up to animal captivity: “Benim Bir Dostum Var” (meaning “I Have A Friend” in Turkish), which can be watched both on YouTube and Vimeo.
January 2014 – The PSA, adopted from the Oceanic Preservation Society’s 2010 “My Friend” TakePart.com PSA and released with English subtitles, aims to start another strong campaign in Turkey against dolphinariums and entertainment industry, in general -where all other animals are exploited to death.
In the two-minute PSA, the celebrities voiced their support for the recent public campaigns against the Taiji dolphin massacre in January 2014. The timing of the video also deliberately coincided with the semester holiday of the school children in order to call out to families not to take their children to dolphinariums and other shows that use animals. The BGKO anti-captivity campaign will continue for a long time to extend to other types of animal abuse and captivity in the future.
The artists who took part in the PSA are as follows (in alphabetical order): Alican Yücesoy, Aslı Tandoğan, Bennu Yıldırımlar, Binnur Kaya, Ceyda Düvenci, Demet Evgar, Kenan Ece, Levent Üzümcü, Mert Fırat, Özge Özder, Özgün, Özgür Çevik, Selim Bayraktar, Selin Demiratar, Serkan Altunorak and Yasemin Allen.
BGKO also effectively supported the campaigns of Freedom for Dolphins Platform (Yunuslara Özgürlük Platformu) in Turkey in 2012, especially by collecting signatures from Turkish celebrities and in the meantime, took active role to raise public awareness during the closure of Kas Dolphin Park in Antalya.
The campaign can be followed at twitter/banagozkulakol.com, facebook/banagozkulakol.com and banagozkulakol.com, in addition to Freedom for Dolphins Platform’s (Yunuslara Özgürlük Platformu) social media accounts: facebook.com/yunuslaraozgurluk and twitter.com/ozguryunuslar
Production: BGKO and PToT Films co-production
Producer: Işıl Ege
Director: Canbert Yergüz
Original Music: Barış Manisa
Text Adoption: Özge Özder
Original Production: Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS) & TakePart.com
Special thanks to: Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project & Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS)
All communication for legal permissions for the film has been carried out by Freedom for Dolphins Platform (Yunuslara Özgürlük Platformu).
For further information, please contact:
Duygu Gürler
Bana Göz Kulak Ol Association (BGKO)
banagko@gmail.com
Öykü Yağcı
Freedom for Dolphins Platform
yunuslaraozgurluk@gmail.com
EXTRA INFO FROM FREEDOM FOR DOLPHINS PLATFORM
Since the day the video was first published on official YouTube channel of Bana Göz Kulak Ol (BGKO) Association, it has been watched 53K times on YouTube in just one week. Vimeo is much higher than that: 568K, with the highest rate of reach at 233K on Jan 28.
As for the one with Arabic subtitles, prepared and uploaded by Q-ASK, the number of reach is at 12K as of Jan 31. Many others have also uploaded the video on their individual YouTube and Vimeo accounts.
Social media propagation is very high too; with only one example from https://www.facebook.com/
Regarding newspapers and online news sites, the press release was published not only on local newspapers, but also used by highly read newspapers, such as:
The numbers we mention here are only important and valuable for their ability to circulate the truth behind captivity industry’s lies. So taking these stats into account, we can say, with great hope, that our anti-captivity message has reached millions of people in Turkey and abroad in order to make a tangible change in their actions and perspectives about our treatment to all animals.
Right now, there are nine dolphinariums in Turkey. Two closed (Fethiye-Hisarönü in 2010, and Kas Dolphin Park in 2013). Turkish dolphinariums have trade relation with Taiji drive hunters (12 dolphins were imported from Taiji in 2008. Despite all official correspondences, their fate is unknown).
Maybe it’s the right time to quote Jim Morrisson, The Doors, with lyrics from “5 to 1”: “They got the guns but we got the numbers”!