Reconsiderthe Swim with Dolphins Programme
Dear Sir,
I am enclosing a letter I sent to your Ministerof Tourism, Environment, and Transport for your considerationas well.
Nora Sinkankas,
Director
Captive Dolphin
Awareness Foundation
Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma USA
Dear Hon. McKeeva Bush,
I am writing today to encourage you and the residents of yourbeautiful island to reconsider supporting the proposed "swimwith the dolphins" program as submitted by The Living Seas,Ltd. Although touted as giving tourists "dolphin encounters"and with "expertise", it is a captive program nonetheless.I would like to offer some information often omitted by captivefacilities.
Dolphins spend a majority of their days swimming miles, sometimesup to 100 miles per day, foraging for live fish.....it is an intimatepart of who they are. They use their sonar to navigate the world'soceans, communicate among one another, interpret their world,and forage for live fish. The mere fact that they are held captivegoes against everything that is important and crucial to the dolphins'health and well being. Their basic rights have been stripped awayfrom them and unnaturally mutated, no matter how The Living Seas,Ltd. or any other captive facility might try to sanitize it otherwise.
During this "education" that visitors are receivingin exchange for their hard earned monies, are they also told -if they were captured from the wild - the process by which thesesixteen dolphins were captured? Were they told that the entirepod was chased to exhaustion, exactly as in the tuna drives thatso outraged the world decades ago? Were they told that, once thedolphins were too exhausted to continue, nets were encircled aroundthe terrified pod and the youngest, healthiest calves were selected?Were they told that many of these calves were still nursing calvesand were separated from their Mothers? Were they told that manyof the pod died from wounds, inflicted during the process, fromsuffocation, or from capture shock? Are their visitors "educated"as to how these dolphins begin and continue unnatural eating behaviors,such as eating frozen fish above the water's surface? Are theirvisitors "educated" as to how these dolphins begin andcontinue unnatural and anti-instinctual behaviors, such as lettinghumans hold their dorsal fin to be pulled around a concrete pool?In many captive instances, it is because the dolphins are trained,to do these things that they wouldn't ordinarily do, using foodreinforcements. They are intentionally underfed until they exhibitthe "right behavior" as deemed by their trainers.
Educational? I think not. In the interest of conservation? Obviouslynot. Abusive, self-serving, and greed driven? Absolutely.
Which is exactly why captive facilities omit this from their "educationaland conservationist" formats. I would submit to you that,often times, the sins of omission are as grievous or more so thanthose of commission.
Nora Sinkankas