SeaWorld trainer death & Oscar for The Cove convince Solomon Islands dealer to free his dolphin inventory

[Guest guest]

The Solomon Islands are closer to Asia than anywhere else...

 

 

-------------

 

 

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

 

 

SeaWorld trainer death & Oscar for " The Cove " convince Solomon

Islands dealer to free his dolphin inventory

 

ORLANDO, HOLLYWOOD (Calif.), VICTORIA--A third fatality

involving the captive orca Tillikum and an Academy Award for

anti-marine mammal captivity activist Ric O'Barry convinced Solomon

Islands dolphin broker Chris Porter to seek O'Barry's help in

releasing the last 17 dolphins in his unsold inventory.

Porter captured as many as 170 dolphins in 2003 and about 50

in 2007, 83 of whom were eventually sold to resorts in Dubai and

Cancun, Mexico. Pending sale, the dolphins were kept in heavily

guarded sea pens at Fanalei on the island of Malaita.

" I have decided to release the remaining animals back to the

wild, " Porter confirmed to Judith Lavoie of the Victoria Times

Colonist during a late March 2010 visit to his part-time home in

Victoria, British Columbia. " It's driven by the incident with

Tilikum. I'm disillusioned with the industry, " Porter said.

Porter trained Tilikum at Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria

before going into the dolphin capture business. In 1991 Tillikum and

two other Sealand orcas battered and drowned trainer Keltie Byrne,

20, during a water show. All three orcas were sold to SeaWorld when

Sealand went out of business in November 1992.

" Tilikum was also involved in a 1999 death, " reported

Associated Press writer Mike Schneider, " when the body of a man who

sneaked by Orlando SeaWorld security was found draped over him. The

man jumped, fell or was pulled into the frigid water and died of

hypothermia, though he was also bruised and scratched by Tilikum. "

Tilikum on February 24, 2009 seized trainer Dawn Brancheau,

40, by her ponytail as she lay on a submerged ledge facing him during

a show, pulled her into the water, grabbed her waist in his mouth,

and killed her much as Byrne was killed, inflicting multiple

traumatic injuries while repeatedly dunking and shaking her.

Wrote Heather Moore for the web portal Care2, " Although a

judge ruled that the video footage showing the attack won't be made

public, Brancheau's autopsy report was released recently. According

to the six-page report, Brancheau's left arm and part of her scalp

were ripped off, she suffered spinal cord injuries, her ribs were

broken, as were bones in her legs, arms, and face, she had

bruises and cuts all over her body, and ultimately, she was

drowned. "

Some of the dolphins whom Porter captured and sold have died.

Many remain in captivity, including in Dubai--but anti-capitivity

activism in March 2010 persuaded the state-owned Dubai World resort

complex to release a whale shark captured in 2008.

Porter is calling the Solomon Islands release project Free-the-Pod.

Wrote Lavoie, " News that Tillikum had killed a trainer at

SeaWorld Orlando was a shock, showing trainers have been unable to

provide for the needs of such an intelligent animal, Porter said.

Another catalyst was the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, "

produced and directed by Louie Psihoyos, starring O'Barry, " which

shows the bloody capture and slaughter of dolphins " at Taiji, Japan.

O'Barry flew to the Solomon Islands at the beginning of April

2010 to assess the dolphins' prospects for successful release. If

O'Barry believes Free-the-Pod will succeed, Lavoie wrote, O'Barry's

son Lincoln O'Barry will film the work for Animal Planet.

ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton, at O'Barry's request,

facilitated a day-long Internet discussion of the Solomon Islands

captures between O'Barry and Porter on the Fourth of July 2007.

Porter then argued that the captures were saving dolphins from being

hunted for meat and their teeth, which have ceremonial exchange

value in the Solomons. O'Barry pressed Porter to account for more

than 120 dolphins who were known to have been captured, but were not

known to have been sold.

O'Barry captured and trained dolphins for the Miami

Seaquarium and the Flipper television series from the late 1950s

until about a decade later, but came to view the dolphin exhibition

industry as inherently inhumane. Becoming a vegetarian in atonement,

O'Barry tried unsuccessfully to release a captive dolphin in the

Bahamas on Earth Day 1970. Learning from that experience, O'Barry

has now successfully released dolphins on five continents. His

anti-captivity organization, the Dolphin Project, is now part of

Earth Island Institute, which also was the initial umbrella for the

now defunct Free Willy/Keiko Foundation.

Deeming the orca star of the Free Willy film trilogy a poor

candidate for release, O'Barry was not involved in the 11-year, $20

million effort that eventually released Keiko in the North Atlantic,

only months before his death in a Norwegian fjord in 2003.

But throughout that time--and beginning more than a decade

earlier-- O'Barry has worked to draw attention to the Taiji dolphin

massacres. Originally conducted as meat hunts, and to eliminate

competition to catch fish, the Taiji dolphin roundups became hugely

profitable after the killers discovered that they could sell choice

specimens to dolphin exhibitors.

Psihoyos in The Cove showed the dolphin killing, the role of

the captivity industry money in perpetuating it, O'Barry's long

campaign against it, and his own efforts to film it, using hidden

cameras and the help of seven-time world free-diving champion

Mandy-Rae Cruickshank to clandestinely place cameras underwater.

The Cove won a string of international awards, culminating

on March 7, 2010 with the Oscar for best documentary film of 2009.

While Psihoyos accepted the award, O'Barry held up a sign asking

viewers to send him a text message to receive further information

about helping to stop the Taiji massacres.

But Psihoyos and crew upstaged their own Oscar by setting up

a sting during the Academy Awards preliminaries at The Hump, a Santa

Monica sushi restaurant that The Cove director of clandestine

operations Charles Hambleton had heard was serving whale meat. Two

vegan activists posing as food thrill-seekers wore miniature cameras

and microphones to a $600 dinner that included whale meat. They

collected samples. Marine Mammal Institute associate director Scott

Baker identified the samples as having come from a sei whale, a

species hunted by Japanese research whalers in the North Pacific.

The Hump closed, permanently, after federal charges of

violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act were filed against the

owner and chef on March 20.

--Merritt Clifton

 

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephones: 360-579-2505, 360-678-1057

Cell: 360-969-0450

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[Your donations help to support ANIMAL PEOPLE, the leading

independent nonprofit newspaper providing original investigative

coverage of animal protection worldwide, founded in 1992. Our

global readership includes the decision-makers at more than 10,000

animal protection organizations. We have no alignment or affiliation

with any other entity. Free online; $24/year by post; for free

sample, please send postal address.]