A bizarre stand-off continues over a petition to the New Zealand Parliament signed by more than 13,500 people asking the Government to let Marineland in Napier import new dolphins.

Neither the Government nor Napier City Council can take any action on the dolphin question till the matter is resolved. In June, city councillor Harry Lawson and a dozen supporters went to Parliament with the big petition asking for Marineland to be allowed to import captive-bred dolphins. They asked Labour's Napier-based list MP, Russell Fairbrother, to present the petition to Parliament.

But Mr Fairbrother still has the petition, saying it should go to the city council because the Government can do nothing till the council makes a formal application to import dolphins. He has been laboriously checking all the addresses to see where the signatories come from.

However, mayor Barbara Arnott says she does not want the petition.

She believes the petition, which also asks for financial support for Marineland, should go to the Government as the petitioners had intended. The council wants to hear the Government's reaction to the petition - especially whether it is prepared to help fund Marineland - before it makes a decision on the zoo's future.

Mrs Arnott also said the council was not prepared to spend a lot of money upgrading Marineland.

Visitor numbers had been down since Shona died but Marineland had suffered from bad weather during school holidays and high petrol prices had discouraged domestic tourism. Mr Macdonald, Manager of Marineland, believed that the facility was viable without dolphins.

"We've been planning for a future without dolphins for two years now," he said. "We have some exciting ideas but we can't reveal them because they have not been presented to the council yet."

Source: Stuff.co.nz (17 / 18 November 2006)