Brutal video reveals dark side of swim-with-Flipper fantasy

[Guest guest]

on the front page of today's The Toronto Star - May 30, 2001

http://www.thestar.com

 

Dolphins' plight puts heat on Mexico

Canadian uproar over conditions

 

Linda Diebel LATIN AMERICA BUREAU

 

MEXICO CITY - After a flood of complaints from Canadians, Mexican

authorities moved swiftly yesterday to close the La Paz dolphin centre and

began negotiations for the release of seven captive animals.

 

Last night, Environment Minister Victor Lichtinger was ``personally very,

very worried'' that the dolphins won't survive much longer in ``negligent''

conditions in a shallow ocean pen.

 

``They can toast to death in the summer, and Dr. Lichtinger knows that. He

really hopes we can negotiate their release very soon,'' said ministry

biologist Silvia Manzanilla, who advises Lichtinger on marine mammals.

 

Yesterday's dramatic first step toward freeing the dolphins by the

Environmental Enforcement Agency came two days after a Sunday Star

report detailing the death of one dolphin, Luna, and the plight of seven

surviving animals being kept in a primitive wire cage in La Paz, a tourist

town on the Baja peninsula.

 

Manzanilla said the Mexican government has received ``a tonne of mail'' from

concerned Canadians about the dolphins.

 

Star readers, outraged over their abuse, offered to raise money, hold a

benefit concert, and even fly to Mexico themselves to protest in front of

the La Paz dolphin pens. Offers of help have flooded in from the United

States, Germany, Austria and other parts of the world.

 

People want the dolphins released immediately, and Manzanilla, who took her

Masters degree at the University of Guelph under the late marine mammal

expert David Gaskin, said she can understand that.

 

But Mexican law gives the owners of the La Paz ``Dolphin Learning

Centre'' - or FINS - 30 days to appeal yesterday's decision. An appeal

could drag out proceedings for months.

 

That's why Lichtinger began immediate negotiations with the owners of

FINS to get the animals out of the La Paz pens and back to their home

waters in Magdalena Bay on the Pacific side of the Baja peninsula.

 

Yesterday's action essentially put the dolphin centre out of business: it

can no longer conduct tours, or offer ``swim-with-dolphin'' programs, for

which they were charging $90 a ticket.

 

The animals were captured in Magdalena Bay in late December and

trucked across Baja under horrific conditions, destined for the dolphin swim

program in La Paz.

 

``We want to do something fast. Now is the best time to release them,

before the summer heat,'' said Manzanilla. ``Ideally, that is what we want

to see. It would be wonderful to see them released.''

 

The coming hot weather could kill the dolphins held in shallow pens, where

they can't dive to cooler depths. As well, hurricane season has begun and

storm waves further imperil the captive animals.

 

In yesterday's announcement, the environment ministry noted the Mexican

Marine Mammal Conservation Society, headed by Yolanda Alaniz, has offered to

pay for the relocation, rehabilitation and release of the seven dolphins.

 

Alaniz, founder of Project Luna to free the dolphins, was pleased with

Lichtinger's swift action.

 

``I am very hopeful they will be released soon,'' she told The Star, adding

President Vicente Fox's new government ``appears to be very sensitive to

these kinds of issues. This statement gives me a lot of hope that the

authorities will make an ethical decision on this.''

 

She added that ``many important things have happened in the last few

days. Important steps have been taken.

 

``I think that very positive messages have been communicated, and it

reflects a new conscience among the authorities.''

 

Alaniz noted that although government had stepped in, there is as yet no

guarantee the dolphins will be returned to the sea.

 

``Of course, we hope the momentum will be sustained.''

 

Alaniz and U.S. wildlife consultant Richard O'Barry, who trained the

original Flipper for the 1960s television series, have already raised money

for Project Luna.

 

Their plan would be to move the dolphins - two males and five females -

either by truck or helicopter from La Paz to Magdalena Bay, and release them

after two to three weeks of rehabilitation.

 

The two oldest animals, Quinta and Concha - both badly wounded during

their transport - remain resistant to training attempts and would require

little rehabilitation time, O'Barry said.

 

Earlier this year, after news about the La Paz dolphin centre first broke in

Mexico, Lichtinger ordered a moratorium on the capture of dolphins in

Mexican waters, as well as a ban on new dolphin centres until a federal

registry can be compiled.

 

Such programs, euphemistically called ``swim-with-dolphins'' are starting up

all over Mexico. ``They are a Pandora's Box,'' said Manzanilla. ``They

generate a great deal of money and we are very concerned about conditions. .

.. We hate to see them sprout up.''

 

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Brutal video reveals dark side of swim-with-Flipper fantasy

Mexico centre's mistreatment of captive dolphins enrages biologists

 

Toronto Star - May 27, 2001

 

Linda Diebel

LATIN AMERICA BUREAU

JUAN ANTONIO RAMIREZ PHOTO

 

VIDEO EVIDENCE: Cameraman using near infrared night vision captured

agony of Quinta as she was dropped repeatedly by handlers.

LA PAZ, Mexico - Shortly after dark last New Year's Eve, Luna the

dolphin arrived in La Paz in a big wooden crate, soaked with her blood, on

the final leg of a terrible journey.

 

She and and seven other dolphins had been captured a few days earlier in the

magnificent blue waters of Magdalena Bay on the Pacific coast of Mexico's

Baja California. They were trucked across the peninsula to a pen here in the

Sea of Cortez so that tourists can ``swim with

dolphins.'' A month later, Luna was dead.

 

The captured dolphins were handled without minimal safety and health

standards, according to marine mammal experts, who say the seven

survivors, including Luna's calf, Salsita, are at extreme risk.

 

Juan Antonio Ramirez, from Channel 10 in La Paz, filmed the dolphins'

arrival that night. It is a brutal video, showing crates being smashed open

with hammers and mass confusion among handlers. Men keep dropping the

dolphins.

 

Watch the edited video of Quinta the dolphin's transfer from the back of a

truck to the dolphin holding pen.

 

http://torontostartv.com/thestar/play/dolphinhunt

 

The unfortunate animals, bound and helpless, look so different from

familiar images of Baja's famous bottlenose dolphins, or Tursiops

truncatus.

 

Sleek and beautiful, they cavort free in shining seas in countless

tourist ads for Mexico's most golden peninsula.

 

Today, the La Paz survivors are jammed together in narrow pens in

shallow water - as little as 45 centimetres deep in occasional full-moon

tides - near sewer outlets and a noisy highway, in conditions described by

U.S. dolphin biologist Dr. Toni Frohoff as ``the worst I have ever observed

in any country . . . critically sub-standard.''

 

But Luna has left her legacy.

 

Her death has sparked a controversy in Mexico that has already led to a

temporary federal moratorium on both the capture of dolphins in national

waters and the opening of any more aquatic centres until a federal registry

of existing facilities is complete.

 

There has been a public outcry against a lucrative and rapidly growing

international industry, in which dolphins are captured so that tropical

resorts can add a pool, or fence off a section of beach or lagoon, and

advertise ``swim-with-dolphin'' packages.

 

 

The Internet is loaded with sites advertising such resorts, complete

with rapturous endorsements from tourists, including Canadians, who talk

about swimming with ``smiling dolphins'' in Cuba, Mexico or the United

States.

 

``The dolphin smile is nature's greatest deception,'' says U.S. wildlife

consultant Richard O'Barry. ``This billion-dollar industry is based on that

optical illusion.''

 

Although there are no such centres in Canada, the Granby Zoo, south of

Montreal, has tentative plans to open a ``swim-with-dolphins'' centre in

2003. It would be a Canadian first and environmental groups are gearing up

to try and stop it. A news conference to oppose the Granby project is

planned for tomorrow in Montreal by the national animal protection charity,

Zoocheck Canada.

 

`These animals were in extreme danger from the moment they were

captured. It is all extremely crude.'

 

In Mexico, there is one rallying cry: ``Project Luna.'' Begun by Mexican

environmentalist Yolanda Alaniz, it is a campaign to close the La Paz

dolphin centre and take the animals home to Magdalena Bay - before it is too

late.

 

It is a race against time, says O'Barry, a consultant for the World

Society for the Protection of Animals. The sea is heating up and the

dolphins could literally cook over the summer months.

 

The white bottom sand reflects the sun, raising the water temperature to

more than 32 C, too warm for captive dolphins who can neither dive to cooler

waters nor jump properly without hitting corroding steel pipes and mesh

netting which cuts into their flesh.

 

``I think it's a death sentence for them,'' says O'Barry, who trained

Flipper for the 1960s TV series of the same name. He stopped working

with captive dolphins after Flipper died in his arms.

 

``The hot water is coming, and with it the bacteria. These dolphins need

help so desperately. They need an angel to save them. We urge people to make

their views known to the Mexican government and help us free these

dolphins.''

 

Money is already being raised and Alaniz and O'Barry have a plan to

rehabilitate and release the dolphins within two to three weeks.

 

All that's missing is a green light from Mexican Environment Secretary

Victor Lichtinger.

 

``We have never succeeded in getting a permit cancelled and dolphins

released,'' says Alaniz. ``If we do, we could do much more than save

these seven dolphins. It would be a positive message to the world that

Mexico will not stand for this kind of suffering and cruelty any

longer.''

 

In the days before she died Feb. 3, trainers at the La Paz facility -

called FINS, or the ``Dolphin Learning Centre'' - hauled Luna out of her

pen, jammed a long tube down her throat and force-fed her.

 

That, too, is on video.

 

Alaniz, head of the Mexican Marine Mammal Conservation Society and

environmental adviser to Mexico's federal Congress, filmed the captive

dolphins, despite repeated warnings from centre staffers.

 

``She is a hero,'' says O'Barry of Alaniz. ``I am proud to know her. She is

so brave. She has received death threats for her work with dolphins, but she

soldiers on. I am in awe of her.''

 

On another day, Luna, coated in gentian violet, a purple-coloured

disinfectant, lies listlessly in the water. Her two-year calf swims

below her, sticking like glue to her mother.

 

An autopsy by Baja California state officials found multiple ulcers in

her belly. She was deeply cut, covered in lacerations, her respiratory

tract was inflamed, and officials noted her ``death could have been

caused by badly executed capture and transport.''

 

The autopsy report also suggests the improper oral administration of

antibiotics might have contributed to her death. Luna was eight. Wild

dolphins live to 50 or more.

 

She perished in terrible pain and distress, says Alaniz, far from her

pod, and leaving her calf in a closet-sized pen where trainers are

teaching the five youngest dolphins to jump out of the water for food,

and push swimmers' feet with their snouts.

 

Luna's story broke in Mexico when TV network Televisa showed portions of the

Ramirez video. It's called the ``Blair Witch Project for dolphins.''

 

Mexicans were appalled.

 

In the video, made available to The Star, dolphin trainer Javier Aedo,

from the FINS centre, hammers open each crate with wild blows that must have

sounded like the end of the world to super-sensitive animals who define

their world by sound.

 

``They would feel every hammer blow,'' says Brian McHattie, Zoocheck's

marine mammal program director, from Toronto.

 

``It would be utter, abject terror for them. They would have no idea

what was going on.''

 

Quinta, a big female, aged between 12 to 15 years, is the first to be

hauled out of her crate.

 

For more than 40 agonizing minutes, she is carried in a makeshift sling

across the highway, through an alleyway that runs beside Hotel La Concha

Beach Resort, and down the long beach to the waiting dolphin pen. The

stretcher rips repeatedly, pitching her to the ground. The video show Quinta

being dropped eight times.

 

She is carried by about a dozen men shouting at each other in Spanish,

including the apparent leader, a wet-suited Aedo. When they drop her,

her heavy body ploughs into the sand, without the buoyancy of water to

keep her organs - lungs, heart, liver and stomach - protected.

 

Quinta jerks her massive head from side to side, trying to bite the men in

her confusion and fear. She keeps banging her head against the metal poles,

slashing her skin.

 

``When I see that video it tells me everything I need to know,'' says

O'Barry, in an interview from his Florida base. ``It speaks for itself. They

simply don't know what they are doing.

 

``These animals were in extreme danger from the moment they were

captured. It is all extremely crude.''

 

The confusion grows, as does Quinta's evident distress.

 

Javier Enriquez Serralde, a medical doctor who owns the dolphin centre,

trainer Aedo, his wife Andrea Borchert de Aedo and workers from the hotel,

repeatedly change tactics.

 

Ramirez continues to film, despite shouts to stop. He can hear the

laboured breathing of the dolphins, their frantic whistles.

 

``When Quinta smelled the sea and started biting and banging her head, I was

almost in tears, but I just kept filming,'' he says, staring out at La Paz

harbour during an interview.

 

``I have loved dolphins since I was a kid. I kept thinking to myself, `I

can't believe these stupid bastards are doing these horrible things to my

favourite animal.' It was torture for them, and for me.''

 

Enriquez Serralde did not return The Star's calls.

 

It's unclear if he is sole owner of the ``Dolphin Learning Centre.''

 

``Our objective is scientific investigation, therapy, teaching and also the

interaction with a species that increasingly demonstrates its great

intelligence and capacity for communication and (ability to) live together

and socialize with human beings,'' says Enriquez Serralde in a recent

statement under the umbrella of the ``Cortez Sea Conservation Coalition.''

 

O'Barry inspected the dolphin centre in late January. A witness told him

that, on New Year's Eve, the mattresses at the bottom of the crates were

soaked in blood.

 

According to O'Barry, the witness recounted: ``When I asked Enriquez

Serralde about it, he said it is normal to see blood when you transport

dolphins.''

 

``We love dolphins,'' says German-born Borchert de Aedo, on a recent

morning. ``We know what we are doing. My husband has been training

dolphins for 15 years. We have a social conscience. These dolphins are

happy.''

 

She is sitting in the fish house that serves as the nerve centre for the

project. It is supposed to be spotless, meeting a series of government

regulations that include such things as freezer space for flash-frozen fish

to prevent bacterial poisoning. Instead, it's a dirty, broken-down shack,

filled with flies.

 

She is bitter over recent negative publicity that has pitted the centre, and

her husband's reputation, against some of the world's most

prestigious animal welfare groups.

 

She insists Luna was sick when she was captured (which would contravene the

capture permit) and would have died anyway.

 

Mexican environmental officials say FINS isn't supposed to be open,

pending a review. Environmental protection agency official Jorge Elias

calls conditions ``borderline.''

 

In March, a ministry report inspection revealed ``serious faults'' at

the ``Dolphin Learning Centre,'' including poor feeding, lack of

veterinary care, insufficient water in the holding pens and a lack of

contingency plans for bad weather.

 

The centre offers a tour for roughly $6, or a swim with the five younger

dolphins for $90. The $6 tour takes you over a long dock to two narrow

corral areas, measuring roughly 20-by-4 metres. Looking down from the grimy

dock, you can see dolphins jammed up against each other.

 

They are, according to Gabriela the tour guide: Aqua, 10, and her calf,

Capuchino, 2-3; Ricky, 5-7; Nachito, 4-5; and Salsita. Gabriela doesn't

mention Salsita's mother, Luna.

 

In an adjoining larger pen - maybe 50 by 25 metres - two older animals,

Quinta, and Concha, 15 to 17, are submerged in water, seemingly

unresponsive. They won't be available for the tourist swim program until

July.

 

Later, Borchert de Aedo is asked why the centre is operating while a

government investigation is in progress.

 

``The government has said a lot of stupid stuff,'' she snaps.

 

``We have permits. The government people aren't even visiting here. They

don't know what they are doing. They don't know anything about dolphins.

Nothing at all.''

 

She and her husband, trainer Aedo, assure The Star Mexican authorities

will not shut them down.

 

Dolphins travel in large social groups, covering hundreds of kilometres a

day. They are, according to dolphin biologists, sensitive, self-aware

creatures that make choices and decisions about their lives.

 

But swim projects are becoming an ``epidemic,'' according to O'Barry.

 

According to the Dolphin Project Europe, half of all dolphins in

captivity die every seven years.

 

Environmentalists don't suggest Canada's Granby Zoo would recreate the

terrible conditions of La Paz.

 

Zoo director Bernard Ricard talks about strict controls for the four to six

dolphins tentatively planned, and says he would use dolphins already in

captivity at other facilities.

 

``I am against taking dolphins from the sea,'' says Ricard.

 

But environmentalist groups oppose swim programs, believing they send

out the wrong message - that it's okay to keep dolphins in captivity. In

Britain, it's illegal to keep dolphins in captivity.

 

``We hope Canadians will respond to our campaign and refuse to go to

these kinds of facilities,'' says McHattie.

 

There is a postscript from La Paz, a final image of the dolphin centre.

 

It is mid-morning, and the captive dolphins suddenly become agitated,

bumping up against their mesh prison and calling loudly.

 

In the distance, a school of dolphins appears. The animals stay for a

few moments, calling back to the shore . . .

 

Trainer Borchert de Aedo thinks it's wonderful.

 

``Oh, that happens every day,' she says, grinning broadly. ``They

communicate with each other. It's terrific. I told you they are happy.''

 

Further information is available on the World Wide Web at

http://www.dolphinproject.org and http://www.bajadolphins.com or through

Mexican Environment Minister Victor Lichtinger, c/o Mexican Embassy, 45

O'Connor St., Suite 1500, OTTAWA K1P 1A4

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