Vancouver Courier
By Sandra Thomas-Staff writer

Dolphin 'edict' by COPE parks chair not appreciated by NPA commissioner

A parks board commissioner is furious the COPE-dominated board plans to ask the Vancouver Aquarium and Marine Science Centre to place a moratorium on importing dolphins until parks staff can review the issue further.

NPA Comm. Suzanne Anton said she had no idea chairwoman Heather Deal was going to make a statement on behalf of the board Monday night, stating they will request the Aquarium voluntarily stop importing dolphins until parks staff can review the issue as that part of the meeting was for information only.

"I was really offended," Anton said. "That was an edict from Heather Deal and I had no idea it was coming."

At Monday night's meeting the board heard from a delegation led by the Coalition for No Whales in Captivity, which included a 30-minute presentation by retired lawyer Denis Howath questioning the wording of the 1996 bylaw governing the importation of cetaceans-dolphins, whales and porpoises-to the Aquarium. The coalition and other environmental groups want the new board to change the bylaw, which was originally worded to ban all future importation of cetaceans to the Aquarium, but a last-minute amendment by the previous NPA majority on the board permitted the acquisition of mammals already living in captivity prior to 1996.

Now the Aquarium wants to import several new dolphins to keep the lone Pacific white-sided dolphin, named Spinnaker, company and possibly find him a mate.

Howath suggested Aquarium staff acted illegally in the past, such as importing Spinnaker in 2001 from Japan without the required documentation. To do that again would be a breach of the facility's current 15-year lease, he said, and give the board the opportunity it needs to legally end its contract with the Aquarium.

Deal also asked staff to have the city's legal department examine the documents presented by Howath at Monday night's meeting.

Anton has no problem with a review of the bylaw and lease, but is upset at insinuations the Aquarium has done anything illegal.

"I'm a lawyer, I just don't practise right now, but I'm sure [Howath] is wrong," Anton said. "The original bylaw was drafted by our legal department and I am confident it will stand."

Deal said because no decisions were made and it was simply a request to staff, she was within her rights as chairwoman to make those statements.

Fourteen people were originally registered to speak on the issue at the meeting, but due to lack of time only three were able to address the board.

It was then agreed a committee meeting be scheduled for the fall at which time anyone who wants to speak will be welcome.

City councillor Tim Louis, who was a parks commissioner at the time the 1996 bylaw was drafted, and voted against it, said this is an opportunity for the board to do what needs to be done to close the loophole that allows the importation of dolphins and whales caught before 1996.

"In 1996, I thought at last justice had been done but the park board left a loophole so large whales and dolphins can swim through it," he told the board. "It's time for you to assert your authority and close this loophole."

Louis's comments brought loud applause from the packed room.

Richard O'Barry, a Florida-based marine-mammal specialist with the World Society for the Protection of Animals and former dolphin trainer for the Flipper TV series, gave the board a multi-paged document that included a list of how dolphins die in captivity.

It listed trauma, fighting, drowning, kidney problems, pneumonia, malnutrition, stress, zinc and chlorine poisoning, ingesting a foreign object and failure to adapt.

"This is a list the capture industry doesn't want you to see," O'Barry said. "It tells you if the dolphin was male or female, the date of its capture and how it died. This list is a litany of death and destruction. Keeping dolphins in captivity is a failed experiment."

He said just last month the Hawaiian island of Maui decreed it will no longer keep marine mammals in captivity, joining the ranks of South Carolina, Melbourne, Australia, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

He said keeping dolphins in captivity can't be called science and education because too many of the mammals die.

"This is not about science, it's about ethics," he said.

"The solution is not to get more dolphins, but to do some real research and find out where Spinnaker is really from and figure out a way to take him home."

After the meeting, Annelise Sorg, director of the Coalition for No Whales in Captivity, told media she considered the parks board decision to be a victory. Anton disagrees.

"This was not a victory," Anton said. "It was undebated, undiscussed and undemocratic."

Aquarium president John Nightingale said there has been no request for a moratorium from the parks board yet.

"Our intentions are exactly the same as they've always been," he said. "We will continue to follow the words and spirit of the lease until it runs out in 2014."

As for the board's request to hear from the public concerning the issue, Nightingale replied, "It these attacks continue they will represent the systematic dismantling of the aquarium species by species," he said. "If that's what the community wants then they should contact the park board."


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