VANCOUVER SUN Wednesday July 23, 2003
by Nicholas Read

Search for dolphins will continue

Aquarium president will defy park board while city studies legal submission from 'No Whales'

Vancouver Aquarium president John Nightingale said he would continue to look for new dolphins for the aquarium even if the city's park board asks him to stop.

At a meeting of the board Monday night, board chair Heather Deal said the board would ask Nightingale to voluntarily refrain from importing any more dolphins into the aquarium until city staff has a chance to review a legal submission put forward to the board by the Coalition For No Whales In Captivity.

The coalition wants the board to implement a comprehensive ban against importing whales and dolphins into Stanley Park.

Nightingale said Tuesday that he has not received any such request from the board, and that even if he does, he would ignore it and continue to engage in discussions with other aquariums "as they come up."

"We will continue looking," Nightingale said. "That's a long process whose timing is not under our control."

Board vice-chair Anita Romaniuk said a letter would be sent to Nightingale this week.

She also said the board "would be very unhappy" if Nightingale continues to search for dolphins while city staff conducts its review.

"We can't force him to stop," she said. "So that would make the relationship somewhat strained, I would say."

She said the review is expected to be completeed some time this fall.

Nightingale said that according to a lease negotiated between the aquarium and a then NPA-dominated park board in 1998, he is permitted to import dolphins and whales providing they were not caught from the wild or, if they were, that they were taken before September 1996.

The lease was negotiated following a series of public meetings about keeping whales and dolphins captive in 1996. At the time the park board asked the aquarium to phase out keeping whales and dolphins in captivity, but the aquarium refused.

The aquarium's intention, Nightingale said, was "to follow the letter and spirit" of its lease, which expires in 2014.

Coalition representative Annelise Sorg said she was "very dissapointed" with Nightingale's position.

"It's a public aquarium built on public land," Sorg said. "There's a lot of public interest in keeping whels and dolphins in captivity, and we're in the middle of a public discussion."

Romaniuk said while she and other members of the current COPE-dominated board are personally opposed to keeping whales and dolphins in captivity, the board would not enact an outright ban without gauging public opinion first.

"We want to have a public process around this," Romaniuk said. "That is the feeling of the COPE people - that there should be public consultation around this."

Sorg said she is happy with that position.

"I think most people in the city feel awful about keeping these poor animals in captivity. Unfortunately the spin doctors have managed to tug at the heartstrings of the public by saying this about obtaining another dolphin companion for Spinnaker (the aquarium's only dolphin). That's not what this is about. This is about the international commercial trade in whales and dolphins and a Vancouver park board bylaw that was intended to ban the importation of all whales and dolphins and does not."

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR sunletters@pacpress.southam.ca

Letters to the Editor

VANCOUVER SUN

Wednesday, July 23, 2003 letter to the editor

Aquarium's good works always overshadowed

Re: Aquarium claims lease allows dolphin purchase, July 22

I find The Sun's aquarium-related articles incredibly biased. They're always reported from the protesters' side. I would like to see the story from the aquarium's side. For example, why is Spinnaker, the dolphin, in captivity?

First, in Vancouver, he has a better home than he had in Osaka, Japan. There, he was an extra, used just for breeding. Here he is getting positive stimulation, and is thriving.

Second, why is he even in an aquarium? If you look at his pectoral fin, you can see scar marks from where he was caught in fishing net. He was saved. He should have been rehabilitated and released, but he wasn't. So why not give him the best life possible?

Without the Vancouver Aquarium, Springer, the orphan orca, would never have been successfully moved to rejoin his pod. The sea otters coated in oil from the Exxon Valdez would not have been successfully rehabilitated. Our marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation centre would not be running, nor would conservation projects like River Works (www.riverwirks.org), the leatherback turtle program and killer whale adoption program.

The positive impact the aquarium has on the community and the globe is so much more than the bad. But the good points are always overshadowed.

Michelle Wille, North Vancouver

Anti-aquarium group's proposal would kill facility, says director

Charlie Anderson

The Province Wednesday, July 23, 2003

An anti-captive-whale proposal that got a sympathetic hearing at Vancouver Parks Board would mean the "dismemberment of the aquarium one species at a time," says Vancouver Aquarium director John Nightingale.

The Coalition for No Whales in Captivity called for a comprehensive ban of any new whales or dolphins at the aquarium Monday before the board, something Nightingale called an "attack" on one of Vancouver's most popular attractions.

"If the coalition got what it asked for last night, it would mean at some point . . . no more whales or dolphins," he said. "I have no doubt that the group would take after other species in the aquarium.

"The community hasn't spent the last 50 years building this aquarium to see it go backwards and out of business," Nightingale said.

The board decided to "request" the aquarium not bring in any new dolphins as a companion for Spinnaker, its Pacific white-sided dolphin.

The request is pending a review of the parks bylaw that allows the aquarium, its tenant, to bring in dolphins that were caught before 1996 or born in captivity.

Coalition head Anneliese Sorg argued there was no way to determine accurately a dolphin's age, something Nightingale said was not true.

Nightingale said that the bylaw, the aquarium's lease and a memorandum of understanding all set out the conditions through which the facility can bring in dolphins. The aquarium's lease expires in 2014.

The aquarium has been looking to add one or two more dolphins to their display.

canderson@png.canwest.com

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