Stephanie Jackter
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MAKE THAT 3 DEAD DOLPHINS AT DELFINARIO IN LA PAZ
http://www.gringogazette.com/southern/october06_2003/page1/
The article is halfway impossible to read, as usual with Gringo Gazetter online, so I'll give a little summary. Yet another dolphin died at the
Delfinario a couple of days ago from the pollution and debris left by the last hurricane including run-off from the La Paz sewage system. One of the
3 dolphins was pregnant, making it all the more sad.
The owners of the dolphins and the G/G seem to be laying the blame at the door of environmentalists, who over the years have said that it's not an
adequate habitat for dolphins and have boycotted and lobbied the govt. of Mexico to shut it down. Because of that, they haven't been allowed by the
govt. to charge admission and haven't had enough money to care for the animals properly.
My view: What Bunk! I was just at the delfinario enquiring about prices this summer and was told by the owner that the charge for swimming with the
dolphins was $75 per head.
There are 4 dolphins still languishing in the polluted waters at the site from the original 8. When asked what the proper course of action would be
at this point, the owner agreed that evacuation is necessary, but [because of those pesky environmentalists, of course] they haven't got the money to
move them.
Has anybody considered opening the cages and throwing bait off the back of a boat to lure the animals to follow out to open waters, where they can
survive? No. Obviously that's not an option. The dolphin's health is secondary to their being a cash cow, as obviously has been the case when push
comes to shove all along. How sad.
I have maintained for quite a while that the benefit of having these dolphins caged might be of some good in the interest of creating more human
understanding of their needs as a species - also that the bigger issue is that thousands of dolphins are being killed anually by commercial fishing
enterprises as "bi-catch", to which a blind eye seems to be turned by all.
But I now that they are letting these animals die wholesale, I vow I will never do business again with the Delfinario in La Paz. They should have
evacuated the remaining animals from the living tomb they're in the moment they found out that's what it was. To let them remain, knowing that they
are swimming in chemical soup is abuse of the highest order. - Stephanie
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Family Guy
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Trapped in an underwater hell
Mexico pressed to free dolphins after hurricane kills 3
Star readers fuelled crusade to rescue mammals
LINDA DIEBEL
STAFF REPORTER
Mexican authorities recently left seven captive dolphins in a shallow steel sea-cage, only metres from the beach, during two deadly hurricanes on the
Baja California coast. Within days of Hurricane Marty on Sept. 22, three were dead.
These are the same dolphins authorities promised to protect after an international protest over their treatment, led by Star readers, two years ago.
They had no way out. Abandoned to the storm, unable to dive, they were thrown up against the bottom by hurricane-force winds, their big bodies tossed
against wooden pylons and bashed against the steel mesh of their cage about the size of two football fields.
"It would have been like being in a washing machine," says U.S. dolphin expert Ric O'Barry.
Of eight bottlenose dolphins captured in late 2000 and caged in the tourist town of La Paz, half are now dead. This has occurred despite an ongoing
campaign for their release and a fully financed plan to free them in the Pacific Ocean.
The first dolphin, a female, Luna, died within a month of capture. After the last storm, three more died ? Concha, six months pregnant, young male
Ricky, and Quinta, a big male whose bungled capture and mistreatment, captured on videotape, enraged Star readers.
The Mexican government is legally responsible for these dolphins, captured for a "swim-with-dolphins" scheme. Yet, despite warnings, nobody ensured
there was an adequate hurricane evacuation plan in place ? again, mandated by law ? in a hurricane capital of the world.
Mexican authorities are still fussing over autopsy findings, saying preliminary results suggest "circumstantial" deaths. But environmentalists, who
warned of this sad outcome, have no doubt they died as a result of the hurricane and its aftermath. Their internal organs were brutally pounded, says
O'Barry.
The four surviving dolphins are in rough shape, swimming in a chocolate-brown sludge of sewage and debris from back-to-back hurricanes, Ignacio in
August, then Marty. On the autopsy table, it was discovered Quinta suffocated from a baseball cap stuck in his esophagus.
Their sea-cage abuts on sewer outlets. At its lowest point, it's 26 centimetres deep.
"I cannot even imagine the horror of being prisoners in that sea-pen, without any chance of saving themselves," says Mexican environmentalist Yolanda
Alaniz. She has led the campaign to release the dolphins back to the Pacific, a stone's throw across the narrow Baja Peninsula from La Paz.
Star readers have been involved from the start, and they almost succeeded.
Two years ago, appalled by a story about their brutal capture and subsequent death of Luna, hundreds of readers launched an international protest to
Mexican President Vicente Fox. Widespread media coverage ensued, including ABC's 20/20 and, for a few months before powerful Mexican interests tied up
the case in legal wrangling, it looked as if they would swim free. Instead, says Toronto marine mammal activist Gwen McKenna: "It has just become a
bigger and bigger nightmare ... and the hurricane season isn't over yet."
Alaniz is devastated. "It has been very difficult because, for me, I made a promise to them and now, three more are dead. It is personal," she says,
breaking down on the phone from Mexico City. "The worst is that for more than two years we all warned this could happen. They did not believe us."
"We were ready to go and free them. We are still ready to go," says O'Barry from Miami, a wildlife consultant for the World Society for the Protection
of Animals (WSPA). He became famous in the 1960s after training dolphins for the TV series, Flipper. "This whole thing can be turned around. We just
need co-operation from the Mexican government."
The story of the La Paz dolphins is a saga of human greed, stupidity and incompetence.
Throughout, the hapless dolphins were left in the care of an individual who bashed open their crates with a hammer.
It's also a story of heroes, but they have paid a price.
Environment Secretary Victor Lichtinger, for example, lost his job. President Fox replaced him after he came under increasing fire for banning the
further capture of marine mammals and pushing for the release of the La Paz dolphins against powerful state interests. Lichtinger sought to restrict
burgeoning "swim-with-dolphins" programs springing up in every rundown theme park in Mexico.
Mexico's Environment Protection Agency condemned the La Paz operation. Official Victor Ramirez, who closed it down, was fired. Environmentalists have
been threatened and intimidated.
"This is a black eye for Mexico," says McKenna, adding that, with a million Canadian tourists visiting Mexico annually, "the country can ill afford to
have this kind of publicity.
"Get them out of there now," she says. "When the story broke in the Star two years ago I received thousands of e-mails from Canadians inquiring about
the status of the dolphins ... How can you explain this kind of negligence?"
Quinta's terrible journey was captured on videotape by Juan Antonio Ramirez, of Channel 10 in La Paz, and posted on the Star's Web site. The male
(wrongly identified as female by his captors) was one of eight dolphins jammed into wooden crates and carted across Baja by men who, as the video
clearly shows, had no idea what they were doing.
The crates were soaked in blood. Dolphin "trainer" Javier Aedo used a hammer to open the crates holding super-sensitive animals whose world is defined
by sound. Men heaved them onto makeshift slings and lugged them off. They dropped Quinta eight times, his big head thrashing in the sand.
Within a month, Luna was dead. Alaniz, head of the Mexican Marine Mammal Conservation Society, began "Project Luna" to shut down the La Paz operation.
By May, 2001, it was called the "Dolphin Learning Centre" and tourists were paying to swim with dolphins.
The centre is a corroding mesh cage with a viewing platform. U.S. dolphin biologist Dr. Toni Frohoff describes "the worst conditions I have every
observed in any country ... critically sub-standard."
Ownership of the facility is murky. Aedo fronted legal battles to keep it open, apparently with the support of state Governor Leonel Cota Montano,
from Baja California Sur. It is a bog of interests, public and private. The dolphins themselves are a federal responsibility, while the facility
supposedly falls under state jurisdiction.
Cota Montano told the Star in 2001 he would intervene if it could be "genuinely proven" the animals were being mistreated.
"For me, there is more than enough proof. Half of them are dead," says Alaniz. "Do they need to have all of them dead to prove that something is
wrong?"
Aedo did not return phone calls from the Star.
The four surviving dolphins, too weak to travel any distance, are females Aqua and Salsita, and males Nachito and Capuchino. Alaniz wants them
immediately taken from the La Paz cage, nursed back to health and flown by helicopter to Magdalena Bay on the Pacific coast.
The "soft release" plan was put in place two years ago with the help of O'Barry and London-based WSPA. The dolphins would be placed in sea-pens, where
they would learn to eat live fish again and be released in the presence of their own pod.
Mexican environment ministry spokesperson Manuel Gallardo would only say that "administrative procedures" are underway by the government but offered
no information on how the dolphins might be protected.
Meanwhile, Alaniz is horrified by reports the dolphins will soon be moved to a concrete tank somewhere to live out lives as aquatic performers.
"We are all so sad," says Ramirez, who took the first explosive video. "We Mexicans love our country and its natural resources, but we see so much
abuse. There is only a fine line between the abuse of animals and the abuse of people."
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Stephanie Jackter
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Oh, God!
I confess, it didn't even occur to me what it must have been like for them to go through the hurricane itself! The description makes me sick to my
stomach.
Now that I think of it, this is the third hurricane those poor beasts have had to endure with their bodies getting beat against the steal mesh cages
for hours on end. One can only imagine what they've been through.
It seems their "caretakers" might have had that insight, though. The last sentence of that article almost gets it. There's really no line between
animal abuse and human abuse. The torture and neglect of one IS the torture and neglect of us all.
I hope the end is near for the suffering of those dolphins, and maybe after this, that end can equal freedom instead of death. The animals themselves
would probably welcome either at this point. - Stephanie
[Edited on 10-13-2003 by Stephanie Jackter]
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lic. Beto
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make that three dead dolphins at delfinario La Paz
Miran amigos, it always surprises me when animal lovers criticize delfinarios in Mexico or Sea World. They are helping people learn about just how
marvelous these animals are. Meanwhile, gillnetters and trawlers are killing dolphins by the hundreds of thousands. Some attention has been paid to
the tuna seiners that slaughter dolphins, but the gillnetters all over Baja California are killing dolphins and sea turtles with absolute impunity
que la pasen bien, amigos
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Family Guy
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I am not a big fan of zoos in general--how much do you really learn from a caged up animal?? Certainly not their natural habits.
The problem here, though, is the MISTREATMENT of animals. The fact that there was no evacuation plan in the event of a hurricane is unforgiveable.
The senseless cruelty evident in the article is teaching the WRONG lesson.
To the Mexican government: Let the dophins go but ALSO protect the sea turtles and dolphins in the wild.
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elgatoloco
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The Sea of Cortez is a big body of water and the Mexican Govt can ALMOST be excused for not being able to enforce all fishing regulations and protect
all species.
In the case of the 'dolphinarium' in La Paz that is right under everybody's nose, I have seen it personally and it boggles my mind how any one can
justify the dolphins being penned up in that place. The people responsible for allowing it to remain open must not have ever gone there? I do
appreciate the effort to educate people about the natural world but they need to at least come up with a suitable environment. I would not rank this
place with Sea World.
Matthew C. Pebley
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Bajabus
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Mood: My friends..it's good.
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I worked for 6 months accross the street from sea world and have seen the alleged educational jail cell in La Paz. To suggest that it is in anyway
even remotely akin to sea world is like saying bush is mother teresa or clinton didn't inhale.
"Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked of such a thing."
Dwight David Eisenhower
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Stephanie Jackter
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Dead Dolphins
Lic. Beto: "Miran amigos, it always surprises me when animal lovers criticize delfinarios in Mexico or Sea World. They are helping people learn about
just how marvelous these animals are. Meanwhile, gillnetters and trawlers are killing dolphins by the hundreds of thousands. Some attention has been
paid to the tuna seiners that slaughter dolphins, but the gillnetters all over Baja California are killing dolphins and sea turtles with absolute
impunity
que la pasen bien, amigos"
Hi Licensiado, Ironically, your argument is exactly the same one I made even a few months ago, one that I had heard from some Paceno friends and
regret that I bought into- as I now feel they did too- without thinking it through. But after having read the Toronto Star article and realizing that
the dolphin owners should have known that style of cage would turn into a death trap in a hurricane, I will work till I drop to spread the word and
get pressure put on the Mexican government to take those dolphins away from those who have treated them so carelessly.
I am not a zoo goer myself, but my children swam with those very dolphins a couple of years ago as part of a snorkelling class they were in. They came
home that day with a passion for dolphins that has lasted ever since. Even my youngest daughter, who was only three years old when she swam with them,
still remembers that day moment by moment, no video camera necessary, so I do understand the argument that there is some value to having people that
would otherwise not be exposed to Dolphins meet them in that way(especially children, to whom the eventual fate of all dolphins will belong). But what
would it do for those same children to know that those same animals that they fell in love with were neglected to their horrible deaths? I told my
oldest child that some of the dolphins had died from the effects of the hurricane, but didn't share the details. Too gruesome to lay that on an 11
year old girl.
I also will continue to speak out about the thousands of dolphins that are killed as bi-catch in the tuna industry as I have done on this very board.
It's been a few years since I've touched a tuna steak for that very reason. Working on the two issues doesn't have to be done in mutual exclusivity. I
hope that you will join in on both of these issues as well and don't simply use people's inactivity on one of them to justify inactivity on the other,
as I made the mistake of doing for far too long. I just can't imagine that you, or anyone, could read that Star article and not have your stomach
churn at what's happened to these pitiful creatures in the same way that it hurts to think of the huge numbers of dolphins and turtles dying in the
wild.
As one of the other posters said more eloquently than I could, we may not have the opportunity to save the dolphins in the wild, but the dolphinarium
sits as a blight right under our noses and knowing what's happened there the last few weeks, we have a right and a duty to make sure that it's put out
of business immediatelyand the remaining dolphins are removed and cared for.
Que le vaya bien con Ud. tambien - Stephanie
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