Vancouver Aquarium imports a new dolphin in support of Japanese dolphin slaughter

Today the Vancouver Aquarium informed the Vancouver Park Board by fax of the arrival of a new dolphin imported this morning into Stanley Park. The new dolphin was bought from a dolphinarium in Osaka, Japan - an aquarium which regularly purchases dolphins from bloody dolphin drives where hundreds of animals are slaughtered on the beach and a selected few are sold to dolphinariums around the world.

It is dolphinariums like this one in Vancouver that finance and support the cruelty of killing and capturing dolphins. For more information and video footage of a Japanese dolphin drive, please visit the website:

http://bluevoice.org/dolphin/save.html

For the full story of how these work click on either the Expose link or the Annotated Video link.

A Park Board bylaw restricts the aquarium from importing dolphins captured after September 1996. The Coalition For No Whales In Captivity warned the board in April that the aquarium was planning to bring dolphins from Japan. At the April presentation, the board was shown the video of a dolphin drive in Ikki Island, Japan. Chairwoman Laura McDiarmid gave her personal guarantee to Annelise Sorg, director of the Coalition For No Whales In Captivity, that the aquarium would inform the board of any new dolphins it planned to import into Stanley Park well before the arrival of any new animals. This was necessary in order to review documentation and confirm that new dolphins met the bylaw’s restrictions.

Park Board Commissioner Roslyn Cassells is outraged at the aquarium’s disregard for process: “Bringing a new dolphin into Stanley Park without first advising the commissioners is a flagrant disregard for the wishes of the public and the authority of the Vancouver Park Board.”

Send your protest letters to:

Vancouver Park Board Commissioners: 
Commissioner Roslyn Cassells <rcassells@alternatives.com> 
Commissioner Laura McDiarmid <laura_mcdiarmid@city.vancouver.bc.ca> 
Commissioner Duncan Wilson <duncan_wilson@city.vancouver.bc.ca> 
Commissioner Dianne Ledingham <dianne_ledingham@city.vancouver.bc.ca> 
Commissioner Clarence Hansen <chhansen@telus.net> 
Commissioner Christopher Richardson <chrisgiv@direct.ca> 
Commissioner Alan deGenova <adegenova@sutton.com>

Vancouver Aquarium President and CEO John Nightingale <nightij@vanaqua.org>

And don't forget to send US a copy of your e-mail at cfnwic@whaleprotection.org Thank you!!!