Letter regarding Sentosa Island development

Dear Sir,

As a charity which works hard worldwide to ensure the future of dolphins and whales in the wild, the Marine Connection is disappointed to hear about the recent proposals by Kerzner-CapitaLand and Genting Group to build a resort in Singapore incorporating marine mammals and many other aquatic creatures.

Aquatic animals are specifically adapted to live within a massive expanse of water, in fact 70% of the Earth's surface, where they encounter no boundaries. No matter how large the aquarium, it is impossible to replicate the unique and complex situation which aquatic animals face, and are explicitly modified to exist in. Inevitably, the behaviour of these animals will be inhibited.

As an example, beluga whales are adapted to freezing Arctic and sub-Arctic waters, where they travel hundreds of miles either underneath or following behind large amounts of ice. They live in close knit family pods, are able to dive up to 400 metres to catch live prey and will use echolocation to explore their environment and determine their surroundings and identify where their prey is. Each of the whale's natural skills are rendered useless, effectively reducing them to a shadow of their wild counterparts. A captive facility can never hope to replicate this environment even on a small scale. Even in the largest aquarium, the extreme depths and distances travelled cannot be matched - one can only imagine what small percentage of a beluga whale's usual range is being offered within this tank.

Many wild animals will be captured from the expanse of the sea to stock the 150,000 animals which the aquariums proposed for Singapore will contain and the removal and transport of these animals will be stressful, unnatural and often fatal, not to mention absolutely inappropriate in today's climate of conservation and education. Even if the highest bidder opts to go for captive bred animals, their physiological needs are identical to that of a wild caught animal, they do not simply adapt to captivity simply because they were born there. These animals will still have the desire to travel hundreds of miles, dive to huge depths, hunt for prey and use their unique abilities' which have been adapted over time to ensure their survival in their appropriate, wild and natural surroundings.

For the same reasons cited above, the development of another aquarium can in no way be justified by education, research or conservation. Taking wild animals to stock an entertainment centre shows very little respect for conservation or the environment and simply teaches people that is ok to remove animals from their unique habitats simply for human entertainment. There is certainly no conservation benefit to keeping marine animals in captivity where the animals become detached from their wild counterparts; this also makes much research meaningless. In the wild, education about the natural skills and habits of marine life can be carried out via genuine research and observation of their natural, wide-ranging abilities and conservation can be done in situ. To take animals from the wild and confine them within a tank serves only as a contradiction to claims of conservation, education and research.

Kerzner-CapitaLand is to propose robotic "real life" marine animals which will be indistinguishable from the living animals signifying Atlantis in the year 3000. I would in fact suggest that the Atlantis of the year 3000 would only have robotic animals allowing real education without devastating the marine life that is so vital to the ocean ecosystem. If Kerzner is looking to be futuristic they must consider using only robotic animals; confining living marine life which roams the oceans simply represents a nineteenth century desire for the domination of the wild.

I would therefore urge the committee for the Sentosa Island project to consider whether they are looking for a forward thinking and responsible project or one with nineteenth century values that exploits the natural environment simply to entertain the public. Public knowledge of the negative impacts of keeping marine life in captivity is growing. Today, people are keen to visit places which have ethical, sustainable and environmentally friendly roots and the projects proposed by Kerzner-CapitaLand and Genting are a stark contradiction to this.

Thank you for taking the time to read my correspondence, please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like any further information.

Yours sincerely,

Andrina Murrell
Captivity Officer