THE manager of Bahrain's Dolphin Park has dismissed as untrue allegations by an overseas activist group that creatures are being mistreated at the tourist attraction.

A senior official from the British animal welfare charity Marine Connection contacted the GDN, criticising conditions at the park, which houses two dolphins, a sea elephant, sea cat (marine otter) and a Beluga whale.

A letter signed by the London-based organisation's captivity officer Andrina Murrell claimed two dolphins were being kept in a small indoor pool, detrimental to their health and psychological well-being.

She warned this could make them anti-social and aggressive towards audience members and people coming into contact with them. She also claimed to have heard reports about a dolphin biting a man who ventured too close, but did not elaborate. Ms Murrell also suggested that scars and marks on creatures at the park implied that close confinement was having an affect on them.

But Gulf Dolphin Company assistant general manager Ahmed Mahmoud Abd Al Aal, who manages the Bahrain facility, denied any wrongdoing and said it met international standards.

He said two dolphins were kept in a five metre deep 1,700 cubic metre pool and were not creatures plucked from the wild.

"They only live in static water and are not wild dolphins," he said. "We buy them from a place in Russia, our dolphins can never be in the sea. If we left these dolphins in the wild, they would die. We keep them in a five-metre deep pool and it is very clean water. We have a trainer here all the time, 24-hours a day."

The park puts on shows six days a week and also allows private swims with the dolphins.Mr Al Aal said the Beluga whale was sometimes kept in small pen while work was carried out on its usual resting place, but said this was for no longer than two or three hours.

"We have a very good reputation among our customers and schools are coming to see our shows," he said. "We are not only here to get money. It is giving knowledge to the people. All of the English schools in Bahrain come to our park. We have around 120,000 to 150,000 visitors a year.We have been very successful for eight years and people come and take photos and make videos of their visit."

Mr Al Aal said Bahrain was no different to other countries in the region, which also have dolphin parks, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey. He asked for evidence to be produced of the man who was allegedly bitten by a dolphin at the centre, saying swims were going on as normal.

"For eight and a half years, no animal has negatively touched anybody," he said. "We have never had any problems." The British welfare organisation says the Bahrain Dolphin Park's reputation has suffered since reports that two dolphins died shortly after being imported from Russia in 1998.

"As a UK-based dolphin and whale conservation and welfare charity, we are very concerned to receive recent reports about the animals of Bahrain Dolphin Park being kept in extremely poor conditions," said Ms Murrell. "Especially considering the complex environment these animals would normally live in and the large area they would ordinarily inhabit in the wild."

"These animals clearly are not and will not fare well in captive situations and will suffer psychologically and physically to the severe detriment of the animals and potentially to those humans coming into contact with these animals.

"Having had their natural abilities rendered useless and made to perform simply for the entertainment of humans, these animals have become a caricature of their wild counterparts."

She also suggested, as Bahrain was an island surround by water, there was no need to keep sea-based animals in captivity.

"It is possible to see dolphins in the wild off the coast of Bahrain and to keep such well-adapted social and complex animals such as dolphins, beluga whales and sea lions in captivity in the best or the worst conditions is a travesty," she said.

© Gulf Daily News