TIME Magazine: Solomon Isl dolphins

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> Rossitercsi

> 2006/05/10 Wed PM 11:33:21 EDT

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FYI, this is an accurate update of the ongoing Solomon Islands captive

dolphin issue, with the one addition that O'Barry works for One Voice, France.

Any

information on the Australian interest (NSW) would be most welcome

Bill Rossiter

Cetacean Society International

rossiter

 

>

>Innocent Victims

>

>The Solomon Islands tuna industry is threatened as a determined

>Canadian dolphin exporter faces down powerful anti-captivity

>activists

>

>By Rory Callinan, Gavutu

>

>It's hard to work out who's teaching what at the Solomon Islands

>Marine Mammal Education Centre's facility on Gavutu Island. Muscular

>Islanders warn offuninvited visitors to the dolphin pens on the

>former World War II Japanese seaplane base, about 45km north-east of

>the capital Honiara. Inside, the 20 dolphins squeak softly and roll

>over to eyeball their captors as they swim monotonous laps around

>three tennis court-sized ponds.

>

>The cetaceans are of the Indian Pacific bottlenose species, but

>there are no signs, brochures or information booklets on display to

>detail the type or their habits; the only potential observation area

>is a rough tin-roofed shelter. And the only trick performed the day

>TIME visited was the disappearance of defrosted fish down hungry

>dolphin throats.

>

>Since the facility was established in 2003, at least 22 dolphins

>have died, either in the pens or in catching operations. Some were

>killed by a mysterious bug that came with some refrozen fish; a

>dozen spotted dolphins, a species which has never survived in

>captivity, simply pined to death. Earlier this year, four more

>dolphins starved just meters from the open sea when a cyclone cut

>their fish supply. " I call it a ghetto for dolphins, " says

>campaigner Richard O'Barry, who trained dolphins for the TV series

>Flipper. " They are floating there like coconuts, and that's because

>they have nothing to do in the pens. "

>

>The facility has become a symbol of a long-running battle between a

>group of dolphin exporters and powerful anti-captivity activists

>that threatens the Solomons' tunafishing industry, mars its

>environmental credentials and jeopardizes a century-old tradition of

>dolphin hunting.

>

>While much of the Western world dotes on the dolphin as a unique,

>intelligent and sociable creature deserving protected status,

>Solomon Islanders hold a different view. Every January, after the

>trade winds have dropped, scores of men from remote villages on the

>east coast of Malaita paddle their canoes up to I0km out to sea.

>When they spy the fins and breaching motion that signifies a pod of

>dolphins, the men raise a signal flag, converge behind the animals

>and begin to pound rocks together underwater.

>

>The panicked creatures flee into the shallows where they are caught

>by hand, taken back to a village and killed and eaten. Their heads

>are cut off and their teeth pulled out and made into necklaces which

>double as local currency. Says Malaitan Robert Maemae, " We believe

>we are coming from the dolphin. The dolphin is our master in our

>custom. We talk to the dolphins. We use the teeth to pay bride

>price. " (A tooth can fetch up to A50 cents depending on where it is

>sold across the islands; a dolphin may have up to 98 teeth.)

>

>The hunting went undisturbed for centuries, until the arrival three

>years ago of a Canadian with an entrepreneurial streak. Chris

>Porter, a former sea-lion trainer from Vancouver, decided to

>establish a dolphin export business and a tourist resort in Solomon

>Islands after learning of the tradition while working in Vanuatu.

> " If it is in Solomon Islanders' culture to kill them, then I thought

>they would not be anti-captivity, " he says.

>

>With backing from overseas partners, Porter set up two companies in

>2003: the Solomon Islands Marine Mammal Education Centre and Marine

>Export Ltd. He says SIMMEC was to help establish a resort where

>guests would swim with and get to know the Gavutu dolphins. The

>export company was established to sell animals overseas. Porter says

>his catching operations rescued dolphins that were already being

>hunted. " I could leave them on the beach to become a necklace or

>keep them, " he says. After rounding up nearly 100 animals, Porter

>selected the best, shipping 28 dolphins to Cancun in Mexico in July

>2003. He declines to reveal how much the shipment earned him, but

>rejects activists' claims that some animals may have commanded

>prices of $100,000 each. Six of the exported dolphins later died in

>Mexico.

>

>But Porter's activities in this remote part of the Pacific had not

>gone unnoticed. The widely publicized export infuriated the

>anticaptivity lobby and drew the attention of environmental groups.

>Leading the pack was one of the biggest green gorillas on the block

>-- Earth Island Institute, a San Francisco-based organization that

>is involved in dozens of environment protection projects around the

>world. " We're the people who freed Keiko the killer whale, " says the

>institute's assistant director of the International Marine Mammal

>Project, Mark Berman.

>

>Earth Island was joined by O'Barry, who has mounted bold rescue

>missions around the world to release captive dolphins. It is a

>powerful combination. Earth Island wields vast influence in the tuna

>industry, acting as un-official police to ensure tuna are caught in

>dolphin-friendly ways. If fishing operations occur in an accredited

>manner, companies are permitted to use the Institute's dolphin-safe

>logo on their product, potentially adding millions of dollars to

>sales.

>

>In 2004, Earth Island's pressure forced the companies that purchased

>the tuna catch from the Solomons' fishing company, Soltai, to back

>off unless live dolphin exports were stopped. Facing damage to the

>industry, the Solomon Islands government declared a ban on export in

>November last year. Earth Island and O'Barry then set their sights

>on the release of the dolphins from Gavutu. O'Barry says he has seen

>videos which prove the dolphins are being " bored to death, " and are

>suffering sunburn and malnourishment.

>

>Porter denies the charges. When TIME visited Gavutu earlier this

>year, he showed off half-finished tourist accommodation that he

>hopes will become a luxury resort. And only last week he flagged

>further dolphin export shipments, and told how he recently gave a

>group of New South Wales parliamentary officials, led by legislative

>council president Dr. Meredith Burgmann, a tour of the facility

>where some of the group were allowed to " feed, swim, touch and play

>with " the dolphins. " We have a court case under way that will

>determine our ability to move the animals to other facilities with a

>larger tourist base, to support the high costs associated with

>housing dolphins, " he says. " In simple terms, death is bad for

>business. So it is preposterous for people to believe the activists'

>claims that we do not care when animals die. "

>

>Berman insists the stakes are high. " The government knows that if

>they start exporting dolphins again, their tuna industry is going to

>shut down. What do they want to do, lose hundreds of jobs so Porter

>can sell a dolphin for $100,000? " But dealing with Porter may prove

>harder than Berman and O'Barry anticipate. In February the pair

>traveled to the Solomons to observe what they say was a promised

>government raid on the Gavutu center to rehabilitate and release the

>captured dolphins. Despite days of waiting, they say, the raids were

>never carried out. The Solomons government is not well placed to

>intervene, let alone referee. Elections have just been held and a

>government is still being formed, while resources for raids are in

>short supply. In February, then Minister for Environment and

>Conservation Mathias Taro told TIME: " If we do not put some policy

>to control this local harvesting of dolphins, then the ban will not

>be real to others. "

>

>Some locals would like to see Porter's businesses closed, but not

>for altruistic reasons. Says one villager: " 1 want everybody to

>leave Gavutu, so I can dig up the dead dolphins, get their teeth and

>sell them. " It seems the one lesson being reinforced by the Marine

>Mammal Education Centre is one Solomon Islanders learned years

>ago-dolphins are worth money, and everyone wants a cut.

 

 

 

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