28 dolphins captured off the Solomon Islands are flown to new swim-with facility in Dubai

October 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2007:

DUBAI, U.A.E.– Twenty-eight dolphins captured in July 2007
off the Solomon Islands “are definitely coming to Dubai and will all
go to one place, the Atlantis Palm Dubai,” a Dubai representative
of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species told
Emmanuelle Landais of Gulf News two days before the flight.
But even though the transaction was extensively covered for
The Independent news services and Associated Press by Solomon Islands
correspondent George Herming, a Kerzner International spokesperson
insisted to Landais that, “We cannot disclose information about
where we acquire our dolphins or details of the transport at this
time as a matter of security.”
Former Vancouver Aquarium trainer Christopher Porter and
Solomon Islands Marine Mammal Education Centre director Robert Satu
reportedly negotiated the deal for about $30,000 per dolphin–but
Satu also “would not reveal the identity of the importer or the price
paid,” Herming wrote, and guards on October 11 chased away a camera
crew who tried to videotape the dolphins’ departure.

Five Makah arrested for killing whale without permit

September 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

NEAH BAY, Washington– Frustrated by eight years of failing
to obtain a new federal permit to kill gray whales, after killing
one in May 1999, Makah tribal whaler Wayne Johnson, 54, and four
other Makah– Theron Parker, Andy Noel, Billy Secor and Frank
Gonzales Jr.–on September 8, 2007 killed a whale without a permit
and without tribal authorization or awareness.
“Crew members plunged at least five stainless steel whaling
harpoons into the animal. Then they shot it,” wrote Seattle Times
staff reporter Lynda V. Mapes. “The Coast Guard, alerted to the
hunt by onlookers, was on the scene within hours. Johnson and the
others quickly found themselves in handcuffs,” recounted Mapes.
“The Coast Guard confiscated the gun and their boats, and cut the
whale, harpoons and all, loose to drift on the current. By evening,
the whale was dead, and sank out of sight.

Iceland halts commercial whaling

September 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

REYKJAVIK–Iceland fisheries minister Einar K Guofinnsson on
September 3, 2007 announced that Iceland will not issue new
commercial whaling quotas.
Iceland in 2006 joined Norway in unilaterally defying the
21-year-old Inter-national Whaling Commission moratorium on
commercial whaling by issuing itself permits to kill 30 minke whales
and nine endangered fin whales. Anticipating a market in Japan for
whale meat, Icelandic fishers killed seven minke whales and seven
fin whales, but were unable to get permission to export the meat.
“There is no reason to continue commercial whaling if there
is no demand for the product,” Guofinnsson said.
Iceland, like Japan, has sustained a remnant whaling
industry despite the IWC moratorium by authorizing whalers to hunt in
the name of research. Iceland issued “scientific whaling” permits to
kill 38 minke whales in 2003, 25 in 2004, 39 in 2005, and 60 in
2006–far below the Japanese toll of 6,795 whales killed in research
whaling since 1987.

Norwegian whaler scuttled at dock

September 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:
OSLO–Sabotage was suspected in the August 30, 2007 dockside
sinking of the whaling vessel Willassen Senior in the northern
Norwegian port city of Svolvaer. No injuries were reported.
“On the night of August 30th we decided to celebrate the end
of commercial whaling in Iceland by removing a large section of
cooling pipe in the engine room of the Norweigan whaler Willassen
Senior,” said an anonymous e-mail forwarded on September 11, 2007
from Norwegian activist Daniel Rolke to Dolphin Project founder Ric
O’Barry, who shared it with ANIMAL PEOPLE.
The e-mail was signed “Agenda 21,” the name of a United
Nations Environmental Program protocol.
“This is the fifth Norwegian whaler that has come under
attack for illegal whaling activities since 1992,” e-mailed Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson from Friday Harbor,
Washington. “The others were the Nybraena, scuttled at dockside in
December 1992; the Senet, scuttled at dockside in January 1994;
the Elin-Toril, severely damaged in 1997; and the Morild, sunk in
1998.”
All were refloated and repaired.

Gulfarium fails to report marine mammal deaths for more than 18 years

July 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

FORT LAUDERDALE–Dolphin Freedom Foundation founder Russ
Rector, 58, is betting he’ll outlive the Gulfarium, the Miami
Seaquarium, and many of the other first-generation marine mammal
parks still operating along the Florida coast.
“We’re all about the same age,” Rector told ANIMAL PEOPLE,
“and I’m showing mine, but so are they, and I don’t have to pass
building inspections.”
Marineland of Florida, opened in 1938, still exists in name
as a swim-with-dolphins facility, but no longer stages dolphin
shows. The original circular tank and the slightly larger
rectangular tank have been demolished. Most of the property is now a
condominium development.

Seeking killer of dolphin advocate

July 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
The St. Lucia government has hired nine British detectives to
try to solve the August 2006 murder of dolphin advocate Patricia Lee,
60, London Daily Telegraph writers Paul Henderson and Richard Savill
reported on May 14, 2007.
Lee, from Devon, England, moved to St. Lucia in 1994 to
run a yacht charter business and restaurant with her boyfriend
Bernard Haddican, who died in 2003.
“Lee’s body was found after she failed to turn up at a
memorial service for the husband of a close friend,” Henderson and
Savill wrote. “Two weeks after Lee’s disappearance an anonymous
caller told police where to look for her. Within 24 hours her
remains were found in a shallow grave.”
“Lee was a volunteer for the St. Lucia Animal Protection
Society, an organisation that had a member murdered three years
ago,” Henderson and Savill noted. “Jane Tipson, found slumped over
the wheel of her car after being shot in the neck, had feared for
her life because she was protesting against the establishment of
‘swim with dolphins’ centers on the island. Her murder has never been
solved.” ANIMAL PEOPLE reported in detail on the Tipson case in
October 2003.
At least 74 people have been murdered on St. Lucia within the
past two years, many of them believed to be victims of contract
killings.

FoA acquires Whale Rescue Team, seeks to reclaim Primarily Primates animals

July 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
The Whale Rescue Team, founded in 1984 by Peter Wallerstein,
on July 1, 2007 became Marine Animal Rescue, a project of Friends
of Animals. Marine Animal Rescue will continue to rescue and
rehabilitate stranded marine mammals and birds from Marina del Rey,
the beaches of Venice and Santa Monica, and the port of San Pedro.
FoA, based in Darien, Connecticut, acquired the Whale
Rescue Team 11 months after reaching an agreement to take over the
Primarily Primates sanctuary near San Antonio, Texas, but only two
months after taking possession of the sanctuary, which was directed
by a court-appointed receiver from mid-October 2006 through April
2007.

Dolphin captures in Solomon Islands are linked to Panama, Dubai

July 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

GAVATU– As of July 24, 2007, Canadian dolphin broker
Christopher Porter was reportedly holding as many as 50 recently
captured dolphins in sea pens at Malaita in the Solomon Islands.
“Ocean Embassy, also known as the Wildlife International
Network, is in the Solomon Islands trying to export the dolphins to
Dubai,” Dolphin Project founder Ric O’Barry told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Five new dolphin facilities in Dubai want dolphins, whales, polar
bears–every marine mammal they can get. Ocean Embassy is the broker.
“Somehow Ocean Embassy has been able to stay out of the media
regarding Dubai,” O’Barry added. “They brokered the deal but Porter
gets all of the attention. Ocean Embassy represents big money,”
O’Barry continued. “They dwarf Porter’s operation. The parent
corporation began selling securities via a private placement offering
in the United States in late 2003. At present, the parent company is
represented by 195 investors from the United States, Mexico, the
United Kingdom, and France.

Will Taiji again capture orcas?

June 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2007:
“The town of Taiji plans to capture orcas in order to secure
financial resources,” charges Sha-Chi JP, a Japanese-based web
site “dedicated to the Taiji-5 orcas captured on February 7, 1997.”
The site is posted by volunteers Seiji Inagaki, Nanami Kurasawa,
Yoshiko Nagatsuka, Yoshimi Takahashi, and Carla Hernandez, with
the help of OrcaLab, the British Columbia-based project of
anti-captivity marine mammologist Paul Spong.
Taiji is globally notorious as the site of dolphin massacres.
Herded into shallow water by boat, the dolphins are confined with
nets, then hacked to death. The toll exceeds 1,000 dolphins per
winter. Most are of small species. The 1997 orca captures were
unusual.

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