Hong Kong's Ocean Park to pay for dolphin study in the Solomons criticised

Conservation fund to pay for dolphin study here
Solomon Star 5 May 10;
Simon Parry, South China Morning Post

HONG KONG – Ocean Park plans to give around US$100,000 from its charitable foundation to fund a controversial survey that could lead to up to 30 wild dolphins from the Solomon Islands being captured and imported to the theme park.

The park's executive director for zoological operations, Suzanne Gendron, said the opponents of the study were in "the minority" and that the study on dolphin numbers would be funded in part by a grant from the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation (OPCF).

The grant was criticised by Samuel Hung, chairman of Hong Kong's Dolphin Conservation Society, who said the proposed study was not a conservation project and would be "a disaster" for the foundation.

Gendron on Sunday night said the foundation was not giving the money directly to the government of the Solomon Islands to conduct the dolphin study but was "supporting an independent scientist to conduct an archipelago-wide small cetacean study".

She did not identify the independent scientist.

The South China Morning Post revealed a fortnight ago that the park was planning to fund a study by the Solomon Islands government and had discussed importing 24 to 30 wild bottlenose dolphins if the study found the population was sustainable.

Conservation groups, including the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, have criticized the plan, saying there is no justification for removing animals from the wild.

Gendron, who was confronted by activists while in the Solomon Islands early last month, said she believed the survey would go ahead and expected it to start later this year.

"We have set aside [around] US$100,000 for a number of years which is in line with the other studies we support through the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation," she said.

The foundation was set up in 1993 with a mission to "take a leadership role in education and conservation activities involving dolphins and whales and their habitats in East and Southeast Asia". It receives around HK$7 million a year from the theme park and also invites donations.

Gendron said the survey, which will also be funded by the Solomon Islands government, was "not outside the realm of" the foundation's mission.

She said: "Ocean Park would not be involved in any capture and acquisition of dolphins ... until the study is completed and determines that a non-detrimental take is feasible."

But Hung said: "If they fund this study, it will be a disaster for the OPCF and it will ruin their reputation. The foundation has funded a lot of good studies in the past ... but the Solomon Islands project won't be a conservation study.

“The ultimate goal is to help Ocean Park get animals, so there is a clear conflict of interest."

Gendron said the funding proposal had not yet been approved by the OPCF's independent advisers but would be reviewed by them "when the scientific proposal has been completed".

Hung said he had had spoken to a few scientists funded by the foundation and they were very unhappy.

"Whenever they submit a good conservation proposal, they get only 50 per cent of what they request because they are told the OPCF doesn't have the money because.

"So when the news breaks that they are spending around US$100,000 on the Solomon Islands project, people will be furious. It means that if I donate money to the OPCF, I am donating money towards the potential capture of dolphins in the Solomon Islands. It is anti-conservation."



Dolphin study opposed
Solomon Star 5 May 10;

EARTH Island Institute (EII) has opposed to a proposed funding for dolphin study in Solomon Islands.

Director Mark Berman said this following reports that Ocean Park based in Hong Kong is going to provide funds for a study to be carried out on the dolphin population here.

Mr Berman said: “The proof is there that Ocean Park is funding the study for dolphin populations in Solomon Islands, which is hypocritical and will only prove the greed of this park.”

He said Ocean Park does not care about Solomon Islands, nor its dolphins.

“They want to steal 30 dolphins from Solomons for a terrible dolphin tank,” Mr Berman said.

“This ‘study’ by Ocean Park is bogus and will be skewed for them to capture dolphins.

“It will not have third party and independent observers. If so then Lawrence Makili, our Pacific representative, should be an observer.

“This would never happen and we oppose fully this capture operation,” Mr Berman said.

He said the Government must end these captures and exports once and for all.

By MOFFAT MAMU

Ocean Park in murky water over dolphins
Simon Parry, South China Morning Post Solomon Star 5 May 10;

HONG KONG – After a visit to the Solomon Islands turned into a media storm, officials say they may import the mammals from the wild .

Will they or won't they?

The saga of whether Ocean Park officials intend to import wild dolphins from the Solomon Islands has, over the past fortnight, become as murky and unfathomable as the Pacific Ocean lapping the islands is turquoise blue and transparent.

The denials have come thick and fast - a denial that Ocean Park employees were on board a boat trying to capture dolphins off the main island of the Solomons chain in early April and a denial that any deal to import dolphins has been struck.

When the presence of two of the park's officials in the Solomons was revealed a fortnight ago, the park issued a statement saying they were there for conservation research only and had "no exchange agreement of any kind" with the country's government.

Then when activists said they saw Ocean Park staff on boats with nets attempting to capture dolphins - apparently mistaking another boat for the observation vessel the Hong Kong team was aboard - the park dismissed the allegation, calling it inaccurate and damaging.

The denials have been so firm and the details of what Ocean Park officials were actually doing in the Solomons so correspondingly sparse that radio station RTHK ran a story on its news website last week announcing: "Ocean Park rules out dolphin imports."

In fact, the reality is rather different.

Ocean Park has confirmed to the Sunday Morning Post it is poised to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Solomon Islands government that will see it donate around US$100,000 towards a study into dolphin numbers expected to start this year.

The study will take two to three years - and if its findings conclude the population of bottlenose dolphins is sustainable, Ocean Park will consider buying wild dolphins to increase its current stock of 16 and to improve the genetic diversity.

A figure of 24 to 30 dolphins has been discussed, according to a government adviser in the Solomons.

Those discussions would not have made headlines had the most recent of three visits to the Solomons since 2008 by Ocean Park officials not coincided with a visit by activists campaigning against dolphin killing and the islands' lucrative dolphin export industry.

What was intended to be a low-key visit to watch dolphins and finalise details of the MOU turned into a media storm for Suzanne Gendron, Ocean Park's executive director for zoological operations and education.

Activists tailed her boat by helicopter and confronted her at her hotel on Guadalcanal Island earlier this month.

Those activists included Ric O'Barry, a former celebrity dolphin trainer turned activist and the star of Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, in which the annual capture and slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan, was secretly filmed.

It was a bad-tempered encounter that O'Barry claims ended with Gendron and her colleague, Ocean Park general curator Grant Abel, running away.

Now back in Hong Kong, Gendron explained: "I was disappointed to see that the activists did not appear to be interested in accurate information but sensationalised and emotionalised the issue instead.

"When I saw them, I said, 'Please, I don't want to be involved in your controversy. We are here at this time to discuss conservation initiatives with the government'. But they did what they did."

Gendron said she had seen only extracts of The Cove but knew of O'Barry, who has a reputation for audacious and legally borderline publicity stunts to promote his campaign against the dolphin trade.

"I had heard of Ric O'Barry. I do know that his methods are not always the most ethical," she said.

"Ric O'Barry never talked to me. It was his son Lincoln who followed us and came up to us and asked us what we were doing, and we said we were there on a conservation project. He asked if we were part of another group and we said `No'.

"I said I was not comfortable with what they were doing. I said I believe you are with Ric O'Barry and his own son prevaricated to the point where it sounded like he denied it ... He was not very forthcoming on who he was, which we thought was quite surprising, too."

The allegation that Ocean Park staff were on a capture boat was "completely false", she said.

"We were on a small motorboat that went along the Guadalcanal [Island] coast ... I saw a pod of bottlenose dolphins. We stopped. We photographed them and we continued on our way.

"We had no nets and no capture equipment on our boat and when we did hear the [activists'] helicopter in the distance we were nowhere near any dolphins ... I was focused on looking at the animals and the habitat and to better understand the logistics for our studies and to help the government as much as possible."

Despite the controversy, that support looks likely to be funding of around US$100,000 from the charitable Ocean Park Conservation Foundation for a government-run study of the Solomons dolphin population, which will establish if it is sustainable enough to support dolphin exports to places like Ocean Park.

Gendron insists it is in line with the foundation's charitable mission, pointing out: "The park donates over HK$7 million to the foundation every year. In the last three years alone we have had 47 research and conservation projects for whales and dolphins in the Asia region alone. In addition, we work with pandas. We also support a project on human-elephant conflict and another on Komodo dragons."

No decision on acquiring dolphins from the Solomons for Ocean Park will be made until the study is complete and its findings scrutinised, Gendron insisted.

"We are looking for a true study," she said. "We are looking for the basis of a good conservation action plan.

"If it turns out the population is not sustainable, and there is a strong possibility that may be true, that is secondary [to our aims]. Primarily, you can't do anything on conservation until you know the situation fully."

The campaign by the activists against the import of any wild dolphins from the Solomons and objections from some conservationists has not lessened Ocean Park's commitment to go ahead with funding the survey, Gendron said.

"There are areas where I agree very much with the activists and that is there can be no conservation initiatives and no acquisition from the wild without proper scientific studies to back it up," she said. "So there is nothing that we need to change because of them."

The central argument is whether or not removing dolphins from the wild can ever be justified.

Some groups - including the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society - say it rarely can.

Gendron takes a different view. "The decision to take any animal - whether it is a dolphin or anything - from the wild is a personal decision for everyone. It has an emotional content to it," she said.

"As a scientist, I try to base my decisions on the scientific facts of whether or not there is good science, and whether it is non-detrimental to the population, and for those reasons I would make a decision on whether to acquire an animal from the wild or not.

"Before I would look to take an animal from the wild I would work with other aquariums. I would look for stranded animals and I would breed within our own populations.

“All those things are continuing to happen. [Capture from the wild] is not the first and only means to acquire an animal. But what we are doing is exploring all of our opportunities."

The main justification for removing dolphins from the wild in certain circumstances, she indicated, is education.

"I believe education is our strongest conservation tool - that connecting our guests with nature, inspiring them to be better stewards for the environment, is the reason we have animals here at Ocean Park," she said.

"Our informal education reaches over 40,000 children a year. We have numerous programmes that bring people closer [to dolphins] ... The power of these animals to help inspire and to help teach is phenomenal.

"We make sure we meet their needs and take the very best care of them. They have a population, a pod and a social structure here.

“Here they have food and the stress of predators is absent. We believe we can give them a good quality of life. We have enrichment that stimulates their minds. They have free choice on whether they participate in a presentation or not."

The benefits of the dolphins are particularly important in a city like Hong Kong, Gendron said.

"Over 50 per cent of the world's population lives in urban environments. With computers, people are more likely to get information from a computer than they are from going out in the wild," she said.

"People don't even have the opportunity to do that anymore. Love of animals and nature is an important part of human make-up.

“There are studies that show the absence of that is not beneficial. Children who play in green spaces after school do much better at school. They have a better focus. They are better students.

"In studies throughout the US in marine parks, 97 per cent of people interviewed in a random sample of visitors find they have a stronger appreciation of the animals and their conservation needs, and a commitment to conservation through seeing live animals.

"I don't think we ever want to lose that ability to have a live animal connection. It would be a very sad world if everything we learnt and everything we knew was only through the internet and through computers and television."