Dophins Rounded up in Solomon Islands for
Export to Tourist Attractions

Photo courtesy of WSPA

If you think these dolphin captures have little to do with the dolphin display industry in the US, see
The Solomon Islands Dolphins: The Myth of "Good" Marine Parks by the Humane Society of the US.

Any Way to Treat a Dolphin? (Los Angeles Times)
The brainy animals' tourist appeal has led to relocation, confinement and, some say, trauma. But Solomon Islanders who hunt them see cash.

October 17, 2003
HONIARA, Solomon Islands - Village chief Robert Satu believes he has a rare gift: the ability to summon wild dolphins. He stands in the bow of his small fishing boat, calls to the animals and asks them to swim toward his nets. Until recently, the dolphins would end up as dinner.
Satu, 51, says he has used his talent to kill 483 dolphins during traditional hunts in this South Pacific nation, harvesting the meat to feed his village and the teeth to use as money.
Now he has found a better way to make hard cash - catching dolphins alive and selling them to an aquatic park halfway around the world.
"For me it's finished. No killing anymore," he said. "We have to look after the dolphins." Full story

Background:

Despite protests up to 200 bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins) from the Solomon Islands were captured in the lawless Solomon Islands for export around the world. 28 arrived alive in Cancun, Mexico July 21. Two more are believed to have died already. On the scene in Cancun, Ben White of the Animal Welfare Institute, reports that he could hear the dolphins scream 200 feet away from their pens. They arrived in small metal boxes with a sling. No water appeared to be in the boxes. The boxes were dragged across the sand.

There seems to be great interest in the estimated 170 dolphins still held in pens in the Solomons. News and field reports indicate that buyers from Japan, Taiwan and Thailand have either expressed an interest in purchasing dolphins or have actually visited the animals. Australia had asked Mexico to block the deal and New Zealand had expressed concern at the dolphins' capture.

Mexican official Georgita Ruiz, who granted the government permit, said the park had met the conditions needed to import the dolphins. The dolphins appear to have been placed with previously captured dolphins of the species Tursiops truncatus, which violates the permit.

Efforts to rescue these victims of war in the Solomons are not over. Animal advocates are looking into potential violations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). For more information, including copies of documents proving illegality of trade contact: Georgia Stephenson, WSPA, 0061 2 9902 8000; mobile 0061 438 601 053.

A Mexican animal protection group, Conservación de Mamíferos Marinos de México (COMARINO) filed a lawsuit to challenge the legality of the import permit to Cancun. COMARINO's lawsuit against the Mexican Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources claims that Parque Nizuc's permit was incorrectly issued and that the ministry should have revoked the permit once government officials learned that certain conditions were apparently not being met. COMARINO estimates that for each of the mammals captured from three to five dies in the nets. In their natural surroundings dolphins are highly social but become aggressive and display signs of depression and withdrawal in captivity, said Yolanda Alanís of COMARINO.

We call on the Mexican government to confiscate the Solomon Islands dolphins. Please contact Mexican consulates in the US and Canada and embassies throughout the world, and Mexican tourism offices.

Solomons dolphin dies in Mexico
29 July 2003 (news.com.au) MEXICO'S federal environmental agency confirmed today that one of the dolphins imported this month from the Solomon Islands to a Cancun aquatic park has died.
Mexican authorities were notified yesterday of the dolphin's death at the privately operated Parque Nizuc in the Caribbean resort of Cancun, environment department spokesman Jaime Alejo said.
Animal welfare activists and the Australian Government had asked Mexico to block the arrival of a shipment of at least 28 dolphins by plane from the south Pacific islands.

Row over dolphin export becomes explosive
25 July 2003 (The Age) Villagers in the Solomon Islands have complained that large areas of coral reef are being destroyed by dynamite fishing to feed dolphins caught for export to overseas entertainment venues.
Andrew Kulebe, 28, of the village of Hadiana, said: "Many people are using dynamite to catch reef fish for the captive dolphins. There are explosions every day now."
He said locals were selling the fish to the operators of a dolphin export scheme on the island of Gela, off the nation's capital, Honiara.
There are reports that some dolphins are being caught on hooks, rather than nets, and that an unknown number have died while being transported by Solomon Islanders who are paid about $A400 for them.
On the international market they are worth tens of thousands of dollars each and more than $100,000 when trained.
At least four dolphins have died in Gela holding pens.
The Age has obtained photographs of some dolphins that were slaughtered for their meat by a Solomon Islands man who is organising the capture of dolphins for the live export operation. One picture shows a dolphin foetus taken from the womb.
Environmental groups have called on the Solomon Islands police and the Australian-led, law-and-order intervention force, which arrives today, to stop the dolphin export.
The Solomons' Government has said the operation is legal.
The first of a planned series of air shipments of dolphins, which left Honiara on Monday, has arrived in Mexico.
There have been reports that more than 30 of the dolphins were taken out of the Solomons, but the international export syndicate maintains that there were 28, and all had survived the journey.
There has been growing opposition to the scheme in the Solomon Islands and internationally, particularly to the dolphins being held in small, shallow pens in Honiara before departure. Dozens more dolphins are being kept off Gela.
In a letter to the Solomon Star newspaper published yesterday, Christopher Porter, the Canadian director of a company formed locally to run the dolphin export operation, wrote that all appropriate Government approvals had been granted.
"I came to this country with an awareness and understanding of the cultural values dolphins play in the society," Mr Porter wrote.

Mexican aquatic park denies report of dolphin deaths
25 July 2003 (MSNBC) Twenty-eight dolphins captured by impoverished fishermen in the South Pacific arrived at a water park here Tuesday, despite protests by conservationists. Flown by cargo plane from the Solomon Islands, the marine mammals were among 200 wild dolphins on sale and held in tiny pens in what activists have branded an environmental crime.
“THIS IS THE biggest single capture of dolphins for public display (and) ... the ultimate idea of tourism gone amok,” said Ben White of the Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute. “These dolphins are out of the ocean for the first time and they’re scared out of their minds. When they get here they have to do dorsal pulls for tourists having flipper fantasies who think it’s spiritual.”
“I think it’s inevitable that we’re going to see a number of the dolphins dying,” added Nicola Beynon of the Australian branch of Humane Society International.
Activists fear the dolphins could suffer trauma from being uprooted from their environment in the South Pacific ocean and could also infect local dolphins living off the tropical Yucatan peninsula with new diseases.

Mexican aquatic park denies report of dolphin deaths
25 July 2003 (Associated Press) CANCUN, Mexico — A Cancun aquatic park opened its doors to environmentalists on Thursday, allowing them to examine 28 dolphins brought from the Solomon Islands amid an international uproar over animal rights.
Sara Rincon, one of the environmentalists allowed into Parque Nizuc, told reporters the three sea corrals holding the mammals were too small. The activists also complained several dolphins appeared to be in shock because they were hardly moving.
Officials for Mexico's federal environmental agency said they met the plane that brought the dolphins Tuesday and all 28 had survived.
Environmental groups, including Greenpeace, have repeatedly insisted more than 30 dolphins were actually loaded onto the plane and that two were seen being pulled dead from the sea shortly after arriving in Cancun.
However, Rincon and others said photos of the allegedly dead dolphins were not clear enough to offer as proof.
Activists and the Australian government had asked Mexico to block the dolphins' arrival. But officials from the Mexican environmental protection agency said Parque Nizuc had met all legal requirements.
At a news conference in Mexico City on Thursday, Greenpeace continued to maintain the dolphins were imported illegally, saying officials failed to get proper authorization from the Solomon Islands.
Irene Blanco, of Mexico's federal comptroller's office, said she was investigating environmentalists' complaints the government violated its own laws and regulations. She said her report was expected in 15 days.
Over the past five years, ethnic conflicts have devastated the Solomon Islands, an impoverished South Pacific state of nearly 500,000, and a multinational intervention force arrived Thursday to try to restore order.
On Thursday, Greenpeace demanded the Mexican government seize the dolphins and send them back to the Solomon Islands, even though activists had earlier derided the long plane trip as a danger to the animals.
Activists argue the dolphins could spread disease to other marine life off the coast of Cancun and should be in their natural habitat.
"It is appalling that Mexican authorities are involved in the looting of nature and the trafficking of species," said Greenpeace's director in Mexico, Alejandro Calbillo.
Parque Nizuc is one of several Cancun attractions that charge tourists $100 or more to swim with dolphins.
The park said it plans to train the new dolphins over the next four months to interact safely with humans.
Most large water parks, including those in the United States, use only dolphins they breed in captivity. But the growing popularity of parks that allow tourists to swim with dolphins has encouraged some parks to seek captured animals.
While some visitors to Parque Nizuc said they didn't mind the new additions, Julie Pritchett of Mobile, Ala., said she refused to go to the park because they held dolphins in captivity.
"All animals should be free," she said.