phasing out dolphin show at West Edmonton Mall

[Guest guest]

19-year-old Maria won't be replaced

Show to be phased out

 

Natalie Armstrong and Foster Smith

National Post, with files from The Canadian Press

August 10, 2000

 

One of four dolphins that has drawn thousands of shoppers to West Edmonton Mall,

one of the country's biggest tourist attractions, has died and mall officials

say they will eventually phase out the animal show.

 

Maria, a 19-year-old female Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, died yesterday of

unknown causes. The average life expectancy in captivity for Maria's species of

dolphin, one of the most intelligent on Earth, is 25 to 35 years, according to

the mall's Web site.

 

" We're not going to replace it, " Travis Reynolds, the spokesman for West

Edmonton Mall, said last night.

 

Mr. Reynolds said Maria and her three companions, which were delivered to the

mall from Sarasota, Fla., in 1985, were captured at a time when such an

attraction was more socially acceptable.

 

" Times were very different back then, " he said. " Here we are in the new

millennium and we're not about to endorse capturing of an infant dolphin and

bringing it into our facility. "

 

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