From Ms S. Muscat

When I was a child, I never had the opportunity to see dolphins, either in captivity or in the wild. However, 18 years later, a magazine with photos of dolphins being butchered in a blood bath on a beach in one of Japan’s villages, was a turning point in my life. I embarked on a knowledge-seeking journey and have since become an avid campaigner for the conservation of these animals. I even founded a local organisation for that purpose, which has contributed to international campaigns for the conservation of dolphins and whales.

Today I am a parent and, although still active in this field and struggling to find the time to make sure that I cope with it all, I am beginning to see things from a different perspective. One thing I hate is to see children being used as a tool to exploit these animals. I have seen the quality of a local dolphinarium and can state that its educational value in this local industry is a disgrace to the ‘educational’ image itself.

One thing I do not want is for my children to get the idea that keeping wide ranging animals such as dolphins in closed tanks is the right thing for these animals. Or, perhaps seeing dolphins land themselves on a concrete landing outside a pool is something natural. Another common trick in dolphinariums is to make dolphins sing a happy birthday tune. This is all wrong. When children see these circus acts they think that dolphins do this in a natural environment as well, which is an absolute absurdity. This is a wrong concept of education and those who support it must be given the red card.

Dolphins are highly social creatures and live in complex social groups in seas and oceans that man has not yet managed to completely discover. The environment they live in is alien to us yet we expect them to survive in a barren environment such as concrete tanks and, in some cases, chlorinated water, to entertain tourists and ‘educate’ our children. They are animals who ‘mourn’ their dead and protect their young and groups in a way that we still have not yet learnt to do ourselves with our own kind. Yet, the dolphinarium industry is the culprit as they capture them, tearing families and groups apart thus making the remaining wild stock more vulnerable. The captured ones are thrown into tanks with complete strangers with the result that some end up killing each other as they are not compatible. They have to endure this act of cruelty carried out by nobody else but the people running the dolphinariums.

I know quite a bit about these animals and can state that it is their ‘smile’, which has led to their misery and allows rapacious business men to exploit them, using children as their main target and tourists as their secondary target. Do people know that if you had to stick a knife into a dolphin, its smile would not be wiped out? Yes, it is that same ‘smile’ that captures the hearts of many that has actually betrayed them.

After more than a decade, the atrocities I witnessed in that one magazine which changed my life are still going on throughout Japan till this very day. And you know what? Business people from the dolphinarium industry are present during such killings to choose the best animals, which are then sold to dolphinariums throughout the world.

People who risked their lives to film the incident and report back to environmental organisations have witnessed this. Therefore, dolphinariums are not contributing to the conservation of these animals but are contributing to their extermination. If dolphinariums are not involved in such killings, then Japan might stop such atrocities. Yet, the industry needs to stock as animals that die (which they do and frequently in some cases) need to be replaced, so they go to countries where their protection is non-existent. An example of this is one of the dolphinariums in Malta. This dolphinarium originally had four dolphins which all died in a span of just 10 years. Only last year six new ones were imported from Cuba where no laws exist that ban the capture of wild dolphins.

Circus animals have been exploited for many years – they were never a contribution to the conservation of the species and neither an educational tool. Dolphins in dolphinariums or marine parks are just another form of circus animals.

Our children do not need dolphinariums to learn about dolphins or any other marine mammals kept in tanks. I have grown to love these animals and protected them through the use of media but this was decades ago. Today, thanks to IT, the media is much more effective and there are so many other means of educating our children without sending them to dolphinariums. Those schools that send our children to dolphinariums are not providing an educational choice for an outing but just an excuse for any outing. This is not the quality education parents pay for. It is our choice as parents not to send our children to see dolphins in tanks and instead provide them with alternative means which the media provides. Moreover, wild dolphins can be seen throughout the Mediterranean and even around our coasts, although they have now become a rare sight in local waters.

Sarah Muscat

SLIEMA