10.05.2006 (Hawkes Bay Today, New Zealand)

RACHEL PINDER

A captivity officer for a UK marine mammal welfare charity is "shocked and saddened" to hear the comments made at Saturday's meeting to replace Marineland's dolphin Shona.

Andrina Murrell, who works for London-based Marine Connection, which aims to protect whales, dolphins and the world's oceans, said she had never been so disappointed.

"As someone who is genuinely passionate about New Zealand, its people, its culture and its landscape, I cannot believe what I have been reading about Marineland's dolphins.

"New Zealand bases much of its tourism on its inherent diverse and fascinating environment. >From films such as Lord of the Rings to the adverts we see on television, New Zealand is advertised as 100 percent pure.

"Surely, keeping more dolphins in an artificial environment where all their intrinsic abilities are rendered useless is a stark contradiction?," she said.

Mrs Murrell pointed out that dolphin and whale-watching in the wild was one of the world's fastest growing tourist attractions.

She does not think there could be a better way of teaching people about dolphins than seeing them in their wild environment.

And she thought Perry Miller's opinion, which disputed the likelihood of people seeing a dolphin in their normal environment, was nonsense.

Mrs Murrell said it would be worth considering the fact that Whale Watch Kaikoura on Monday sighted 400 dusky dolphins, and six sperm whales, as featured on its website at www.whalewatch.co.nz.

"We know far more today about dolphins than we did when Shona and Kelly were taken from the wild and placed in captivity. We now know about dolphins close social ties, their family bonds, and they are not suited to an environment which restricts their natural abilities.

"This is being recognised across the world as places such as the UK, which has not had captive whale or dolphin facilities for a decade, and others continue to ban the import and display of captive dolphins and whales. As a forerunner in environmental issues it makes sense that New Zealand should take a non-replacement stance for the sake of dolphins.

"Napier is in a unique position to develop dolphin watching with Hawke's Bay's abundant dolphin population.

"Teresa Morales stated that keeping dolphins in captivity was the only way we could learn from them. This is ridiculous," she said.

"In addition to wild dolphin watching, there are programmes detailing the lives of dolphins such as BBC productions of Blue Planet.

"There must be some concern over teaching children about a caricature of a dolphin in a captive facility where they simply respond to being fed dead fish.

"Children in New Zealand have an excellent opportunity to see how and where wild dolphins live - they can learn of the threats, the conservation, the dolphins skills, the dynamics of dolphin pods so much more than from a captive dolphin's contrived performance.

"I applaud the Mayor of Napier in her resolve to ensure people learn about dolphins in their wild environment."

She thought Hawke's Bay SPCA inspector Natalie Morgan's comments about replacing the dolphins with captive-bred dolphins was short-sighted, as she believes the captive breeding of dolphins cannot hope to sustain dolphinariums around the world. * For more information about Marine Connection visit www.marineconnection.org

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