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 Help stop dolphin capture for Napiers Marineland
Home Page Help counter the campaign of Harry Lawson to replace the dolphin/s at Napiers marineland [New Zealand]. Harry says
" We need to replace the Dolphins at Marineland".
I agree !
The question is "What do we replace them with?"
The Marine Mammals of Ha wke's Bay, New Zealand and the south Pacific need a centre dedicated to this task and MORE!
This project needs to be out of the Control of the Napier City Council who have already written off Marineland and who think within a very small box.
In the meantime have a look at our petition below and sign it if you choose to: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/191371130 Current dolphin debate on wrong track. Article sent to Hawkes Bay Today Newspaper 23 May 2006 - by Dave Head-which may not get printed! Despite what many people may think I fully support the work of Marineland in tending sick marine life and returning it to the ocean when it is possible. Their dedicated staff have very probably been responsible for educating almost everyone who visited there is some shape or form. I have a problem with animals being used for entertainment ,but am not in the majority on this matter its seems, so will leave it alone. The fact is that the current debate; and I use the term loosely; is focused in the wrong direction. Marineland has been responsible for many business people in Hawke's Bay getting income from visitors over many years. The fact that the biggest motel/hotel owner is one of the men behind the Harry Lawson campaign proves its worth. The huge benefits have not been put back into Marineland by the City, the Region or the very businesses that benefit from its operation. It has been sucked dry and is in urgent and long overdue need of major rebuilding. Just the same as the National Aquarium down the road got, to the tune of about $11 million worth. So let’s not talk about 'battles' I simply do not enjoy fighting. But I won't stand by and see these men get their way without firm resistance! Forget getting any more dolphins, wild or captive bred overseas. The fact is that the Conservation Minister simply will not issue the permits required under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. The Harry Lawson ship is dead in the water, like 70 or so dolphins that have died in previous attempts to capture them off-shore from Napier. So the debate should now be: How do we rebuild, remarket and re-organise Marineland in the upcoming NO Dolphin era? Someone; local MP's, the Mayor & City Councilors [minus Harry] or who ever. But not me; Hell I’m not even allowed to attend meetings. These people, working together for the good of Hawke's Bay, needs to take ownership of this issue and provide the informed and intelligent leadership that is so sadly lacking in the current pro-dolphin campaign. The sad fact is that we all should also be doing everything, as individuals, to protest against Japanese Whaling. Seeing the HB Today printed Mr. Lawson moredolphins web address and not my www.nomoredolphins.zoomshare.com web address I would also ask you inform people of my other web site : www.stopwhaling.co.nz I have spent months providing links to many web sites on my site that have easy forms of protest action and whale information from all over the world. I believe we simply use our power as consumers to stop buying Japanese Goods until they stick to the rules and stop commercial whaling under the very thin guise of 'Scientific whaling'. Lets look at the big picture here and get our priorities right.
"Protecting whales, dolphins & the worlds oceans for future generations" The Marine Connection, PO Box 2404, London, W2 3WG Tel: +44 (0)20 7499 9196 Fax: +44 (0)20 7409 2133 Reg. UK charity no. 1062222 www.captivitystinks.org: contains the following table
This is a great web-site and explains why it is wrong to keep these animals in captivity. [ This space reserved for Dolphin Protection Organisation to paste information - contact dave@stopwhaling.co.nz ] William W. Rossiter writes: Shona is gone. This venerable dolphin survived over three decades in a tank at Marineland of Napier, which is now desperate for replacements to keep the tickets selling. Thankfully, support for this renewed exploitation of dolphins is weak, and New Zealand has no others in captivity.
In the many years since Shona's capture, while she swam countless, aimless circles, the truth about what captivity really does to dolphins has become clearer. It's not that Shona lived on, but that all the others died, in spite of constant food and temperature, parasite and predator-free water, and reasonable medical care. With all that care captive dolphins still do not live longer than free dolphins. Stress kills many, stress caused by captivity itself. Shona was unique; she could deal with stress, but her species is known to suffer and die quickly in tanks. How would you react the moment you realized you were to spend the rest of your days in a closet, doing tricks for food and contact, as the memories of your kin and freedom faded, and the others with you died? Many animals are kept in captivity but dolphins know what it means. That's the difference: knowing. President, Cetacean Society International, USA www.csiwhalesalive.org
Dolphins with Jobs A Guidebook for Dolphin Defenders By Richard O'Barry, Marine Mammal Specialist, One Voice When you first see a dolphin show, it looks like a lot of fun. The dolphins are always smiling, and they're also laughing in their own way -- and so are we. The audience is applauding as these marvelous creatures -- so intelligent, so bursting with energy -- do amazing tricks for us. Could anything be better? Well, yes. It could be better if it were true. The dolphin smiling and all of us laughing and having a rollicking good time, all this seems like it's really happening. But look again. It's actually show business. At first glance you think it's real and I don't blame you, because it's magic, theater magic.For many years I worked the show-biz side of things. I helped capture dolphins for the Miami Seaquarium and trained them, putting on a great show of dolphins leaping and jumping through hoops on command and acting the clown in amusing skits. I even trained the most famous of all dolphins, Flipper, who starred in his own TV series and feature films during the 1960s, some of which are still being seen around the world. It was a great job and a daily challenge, staying ahead of the scriptwriters and the several dolphins that played the role of Flipper.Disillusionment Only toward the end of my dolphin-training career did I admit to myself that there's something wrong about using dolphins for our amusement. They have wonderfully rich lives of their own until we yank them out of the sea, their lives as a species going back 60 million years. I worked for a time on the Miami Seaquarium Capture Boat and used to help abduct them, kicking and screaming all the way. We brought them ashore and dumped them into an alien fantasy world -- and why? It was my job. If someone would pay me to do this, surely, I thought, it must be okay. I really thought what I was doing was acceptable. I even convinced myself that the dolphins we captured were lucky because they would be cared for by humans for the rest of their lives. And listen to the people laugh and clap their hands when the dolphins do flips in the air. Isn't that worth something? I could have stayed in the business of capturing and training dolphins and could have made a lot of money doing it. But when the Flipper show ended and I suddenly had lots of time to think about my life so far, I was sick to my stomach. I was appalled and disgusted by what I had been part of. I was also determined to stop it. Oh, it would be difficult, I knew. Perhaps impossible. If it had taken me years to see dolphins as they actually are and what we were doing to them, how could I expect the public to understand? I was being paid to think that it was okay, of course. On the other hand, I knew what dolphins in the wild were really like. Most people who go to dolphin shows believe that it's great family entertainment. How could I get anyone to realize that this is just a lie, an elaborate ruse masking our ruthless exploitation of these magnificent creatures?Like any other business, the dolphin captivity industry is based on supply and demand. As long as there are people willing to buy tickets to watch dolphins perform tricks, dolphins will be captured from the wild and trained to perform for huge paying audiences. Therefore, the key to putting a stop to the exploitation of dolphins is to reach the consumers. I am sure that if the public knew what really goes on behind the glittering scene of the captive dolphin spectacle, most would revolt against it. In other words, rather than buying tickets to watch dolphins perform, they would be helping One Voice free them. Getting worldwide public opinion on our side, getting people to see what we see at a dolphin show, that's our big goal. And we're making some progress overall, winning in some parts of the world; losing in others. If people understand our message, they'll join us. I'm sure of that. If they can realize that when we talk about “dolphin abuse,” we don't necessarily mean that they're being kicked or neglected. Being in captivity itself is abusive. For a wild dolphin swimming free, being captured and plunged into a tank that's like a teacup, how could that not be abusive?The other side, and why they hate us Owners of dolphin shows and the people who work there have a huge advantage. For openers, many people like the shows. They're amused by the silly dolphin antics. Or they love the spectacles of animal domination, and the more amazing the animal, the more they love it. Chances are they'll never understand what we are trying to do. But a lot of others are borderline. They will listen to us and to their own heart. The other side has lots of money, billions of dollars. As part of the establishment, they make money and pay taxes. They're good citizens. They advertise, they support the chamber of commerce, and as far as the government is concerned, dolphin shows are just another taxable business.But it's an ugly business, and that's our key to winning. Since many people are amused by dolphins doing tricks, the key to our campaign is to show them that it's not amusing, that in fact it's disgusting. If we could convince even a third of the people who go to these shows that it's actually exploitation of the most unforgivable kind, the shows would end tomorrow. Why do they hate us? They hate us because if we succeed, they go down in flames.Getting to know dolphins One of the first steps in getting others to see the problem is to know dolphins in the wild. The most obvious and important difference is that wild dolphins don't wear funny hats, for instance. Nor do they jump through hoops, dance on their tails, applaud themselves with their pectoral fins, or make squeaky sounds like Flipper the TV star.In your study of dolphins you'll find that the majority of dolphins held in captivity are Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins. (Tursiops truncatus) They live in temperate and tropical waters worldwide, weigh from 300 to 600 pounds and grow to more than eight feet in length. They live in groups called “pods,” made up of from several individuals to several hundred -- males usually hanging out with males, females with females and their calves -- and they swim up to 40 miles a day, navigating, socializing, and foraging schools of fish.Whales (Cetacea) are divided into 13 families, which are composed of about 76 species. Four of those 13 families are baleen whales (Mysticeti), those that swim through the ocean sifting out plankton (like small crustaceans and krill) to eat. All the other families are Odontoceti, which means that they have teeth. They use these teeth not for chewing, incidentally, but for grasping. One of those families, the Delphinidae, is composed of 31 species, including the killer whale (Orca), common dolphin, porpoise, spinner dolphin and the bottlenose dolphin, (Tursiops truncatus), the one like Flipper.But when we see them at a dolphin show, what do we see? I'll tell you what I see. I see a dolphin eager to please and ready to do whatever the trainer wants him to. And why? Because he's hungry. Yes, dolphins perform tricks because that's when they're fed. One of the first things a trainer learns about dolphins is that they do not perform immediately unless they're hungry. This is why dolphins are fed during the show. You see the trainer blow a whistle and toss them a fish every time they do something right. And they know what they're supposed to do because they've been trained to expect a fish when they get it right. In fact they often start the show themselves when they get hungry. The trainers call their training method “positive reward.” From the dolphins’ perspective, however, it's food deprivation. If the dolphins get it wrong and the whistle is not blown, that means they won't be getting any fish reward.If you understand the life of captive dolphins, you also begin to see the dolphin show with all its clowning around in another way. It's not clever anymore. It's abusive. When we understand that the dolphins are doing this because it's their only way of staying alive, we see it clearly for what it is: dominance. We're making dolphins do silly things, they would never do in nature, because we're amused by dominating helpless members of another species. The worst part is that it teaches children that it's okay to mock and disrespect one of nature's most fabulous of beings. The law permits this only because it's supposed to be educational. What a joke! But the joke is on us. These pathetic dolphins in captivity, wearing funny hats and leaping through hoops, are in no way like dolphins are in the wild.The saddest part is that we've allowed the entertainment industry not only to twist a beautiful species into a parody of itself but also allowed them to profit from it.What happens to dolphins when the show is over and everybody is gone? Most of the dolphins do nothing at all. They languish in their tank or cage and wait for the next show, the next feeding.If you feel the same way about dolphins that I do, then this booklet is for you. Either you want to stop a planned dolphinarium or try to shut down an existing one. Or you want to stop the capture and trade (import and export) in dolphins. Or maybe you simply want to help One Voice spread the word about the plight of captive dolphins. There are a number of questions you will be asked when announcing your opposition to dolphin captivity. In many cases a journalist who has first interviewed the “other side” will ask you questions like these: Q: What about “special cases” like Make-a-Wish Kids? These are children dying of a disease like cancer, and their final wish is to swim with a dolphin. Don't they benefit by swimming with dolphins?A: They would benefit just as much by getting a puppy from the pound. There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that Dolphin-Assisted-Therapy works. Even if there were, it couldn't possibly justify the animal cruelty that these programs are based upon. Q: Kids from the inner city would never otherwise see a dolphin, would they?A: The very same kids will never see a snow leopard.Q: If dolphins weren't on display, how would people learn to care about them or protect them?A: Nonsense! Humpback whales are protected by people who have never seen them in captivity.Q: What's wrong with keeping a few dolphins in captivity? There are millions of them out there.A: It's abusive, that's what's wrong. There are millions of women and children out there, too, but that doesn't mean it's okay to abuse a few of them.
The impact of confinement - From WDCSWhale & Dolphin Conservation Society with thanks More consideration must be given to housing aquatic species than terrestrial species, due to their unique social and physiological requirements. The enormity and diversity of their natural habitat is in stark contrast to the alien, minuscule confines of captivity. Although subtle and less visible, the greatest abuse suffered by captive cetaceans lies in this very confinement. Free-living cetaceans live in three-dimensional surroundings. They are capable of deep diving, and many species spend less than 20% of their time at the water's surface. In their natural environment, they are almost always in motion, even while resting. They maintain complex societies, form strong bonds, and are known to communicate with each other. Captives are torn from their natural social environment, deprived of their need to associate with their own kind and sentenced to a lifetime of confinement. Captivity defies, depresses, and denies the instincts which define each animal: the captive bears scant resemblance to its wild counterpart.
WDCS is the global voice for the protection of whales, dolphins and their environment See other pages from their web site,click on these links:http://www.wdcs.org/dan/publishing.nsf/allweb/FD9629F4F5FF04B080256907007992E0 http://www.wdcs.org/dan/publishing.nsf/allweb/674D091C794B5DC9802568DD002C0EAFBut wait there is more below: Due to an outbreak of:
there will be a consumers boycott of Japanese Products.
" Until the Last One! - thanks to Nippo" copy and paste & send to your friends You can also help save the whales from "Mad Japanese whalers" by going to: www.stopwhaling.co.nz It has links to other petitions & Information http://www.australiansforanimals.org/
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Mad Whalers Disease 
