Sea life
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:
Foiled when a crew from the Shedd Aquarium in
Chicago caught three Pacific whitesided dolphins on
November 27, protesters who hoped to disrupt the capture
effort instead spent the next month keeping the dolphins’ hold-
ing pen at the Kettenburg Marine wharf in San Diego under
around-the-clock surveillance. Steve Hindi of the Chicago
Animal Rights Coalition took video that he claimed shows dol-
phins swimming “in a bathtub ring of their own excrement,”
which a Shedd spokesperson claimed was salt added to the
water to simulate the chemistry of the ocean. The video also
showed “frenzied Shedd officials erecting a barrier to obscure
the traumatized dolphins from view,” Hindi said, and enabled
members of the Whale Rescue Team to identify “a steady
stream of visitors,” including Tim Hauser, who reputedly cap-
tures marine mammals for many aquariums, and a number of
Navy personnel, whose presence was unexplained. The Navy
has applied, however, to do underwater weapons testing in one
area where the dolphins might have been caught, the Outer-Sea
Test Range. Designated in 1946, the range lies seaward of the
Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. The proposed test-
ing will involve “incidental” deaths and injuries to any marine
mammals who happen to be near test explosions, and is
opposed by many of the same groups that opposed the dolphin
captures, as well as the usually conservative National Audubon
Society. As Christmas approached, the Shedd team was hold-
ing daily “desensitizing drills,” preparing the dolphins for trans-
port by raising and lowering them in a cargo sling.