Plane Arrives to Carry Captured Solomons Dolphins

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Plane Arrives to Carry Captured Solomons Dolphins

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SOLOMAN ISLANDS: July 22, 2003

 

 

HONIARA, Solomon Islands - A cargo plane arrived in the lawless Solomon

Islands Monday to pick up wild dolphins captured to order for a Mexican

syndicate in what activists have blasted as an environmental crime, regional

media reported.

 

 

 

The Australian Associated Press news agency said police in the anarchic

South Pacific nation locked down the capital's airport as the Brasil Air

Cargo DC-10 jet arrived, warning media their cameras would be seized if they

filmed the plane.

 

It said the chartered aircraft arrived with a hold full of " coffin-like "

containers to collect 33 of around 200 bottlenose South Pacific dolphins

being held in shallow one-meter-deep pens and sold by impoverished local

fishermen for A$400 ($260) a head.

 

They were destined for an amusement park in the Mexican resort town of

Cancun, environmentalists said.

 

" I think it's inevitable that we're going to see a number of the dolphins

dying, " Nicola Beynon of the Australian branch of Humane Society

International told Reuters Monday.

 

Australia, which this week leads 2,000 multinational troops and police to

restore order and end ethnic violence in the near-bankrupt Solomons, has

urged Mexico to block the import.

 

But Mexico, which is a signatory to an international convention banning the

trade in dolphins if it harms the species, has already issued permits to the

Parque Nizuc marine reserve.

 

" Regrettably we've got a political crisis in the Solomons and we just think

that the entrepreneurs in this case, the traders, are taking advantage of

that and we hope that the Mexican government will realize that, " Beynon

said.

 

The New Zealand government, which is taking part in the Australian-led

peacekeeping force, also expressed deep concern Monday at the mass capture

of the dolphins.

 

Humane Society International says it is the worst exploitation of wildlife

in decades and an environmental crime. It said the dolphins could be sold

abroad for up to $30,000 each.

 

In addition to the Mexican buyers, Australian media said potential customers

from Thailand and Taiwan had also traveled to the Solomons recently to

inspect the dolphins.

 

The trade in live dolphins is governed by the Convention on International

Trade in Endangered Species, which prohibits it if it is detrimental to them

and not subject to proper regulation.

 

The Solomons, a chain of 1,000 islands 1,800 km (1,200 miles) northeast of

Australia, has not signed up to the convention. Nor does it have a properly

functioning public sector to efficiently oversee such things as export

permits.

 

 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE