SYDNEY, Australia (AP), August 12, 2003

The director of a Solomon Islands resort Tuesday rebuffed claims by animal campaigners that 40 bottlenose dolphins were sick and dying in filthy, shallow pens _ claims backed by Australian diplomats who inspected the site.

Australia had raised concerns with Solomons authorities and the company after diplomatic staff visited the pens last week, said a spokeswoman for Environment Minister David Kemp.

"They are being held in very poor conditions, and this is of deep concern," said Kathy Job.

Canadian Christopher Porter confirmed 40 Indo-Pacific Bottlenose dolphins were being kept in pens off Gavutu Island, part of the Pacific nation's chain, but said the water was deep, clean and the dolphins "healthy."

"They're not being kept in dirty pens, they are housed in a large area that meets international standards and we have professional staff that looking after the animals," he told The Associated Press by phone.

Porter said he was an experienced animal trainer and his company, the Solomon Islands Marine Mammal Education Center, planned to open a luxury ecology resort on the island early next year.

But a team of local activists who visited the dolphins on Sunday reported semi-starved mammals, fighting each other for meager fish portions, sick and living in water filled with feces, according to Australians for Animals Sue Arnold.

"Dolphins are lying motionless on the surface of the water, in their pens. Basically they have little to eat and they're struggling to survive in a polluted sea pen cesspit," Arnold said in a statement.

The head of a Solomons environmental group confirmed the statement, but requested anonymity for fear their investigations may be "stifled." He said they were investigating the legality of government permits issued to catch and export the dolphins

Porter confirmed his company _ the Solomon Islands Marine Mammal Education Center _ had sold 28 dolphins to a Mexican aquatic park in the resort of Cancun last month. One dolphin died after the flight, Mexican authorities confirmed.

Their export provoked an outcry among international environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund, who accused dolphin traders of exploiting lawlessness on the restive Pacific island chain and violating international wild animal trade laws.

Porter said there were no current plans to export any more dolphins.

Local fishermen were paid 400 Solomon dollars (US$60) for each mammal, which then sell for up to US$165,000 to overseas aquariums, Arnold and other animal campaigners claimed.

An Australian-led intervention force of about 2,000 troops and 300 police arrived on the Solomons last month to try to restore stability to the Pacific nation and end corruption and crime after five years of ethnic strife.