Captive
dolphin facilities in Honduras and Jamaica were already standing
by with airplanes and staff members, geared up to go to Grand
Cayman and take over the dolphin rescue attempt. It was important
for Billy Adam and others not to involve the dolphin captivity
industry, for the simple reason that several dolphinariums are
in the planning stages in the Cayman Islands, despite strong local
opposition to dolphin captivity: The entrepreneurs behind the
proposed dolphinariums would no doubt use the rescue effort to
further propagate the position that a captive dolphin facility
is needed in the Cayman Islands in order to deal with any future
dolphin standings.
The One Voice team traveled to Grand Cayman immediately, arriving
on-site within a few hours after the call for assistance came
in. The many locals, who have been fighting the proposed captive
dolphin facilities for years, were thankful that One Voice was
able to show up with such short notice, and the Department of
Environment and Billy Adam covered all our travel expenses. Sadly,
the dolphin -- a young male -- died. He was only a few months
old. When dolphins are this young their markings and coloring
are not fully developed, and it is therefore sometimes difficult
to determine their species. However, we suspect he was a spotted
dolphin (Stenella plagiodon). Somehow he got separated from his
mother and the rest of his pod, but we will never know exactly
what had brought him ashore.
For about nine hours area residents, volunteers, and environmentalists
took 30-minute shifts standing in the water, shading the dolphin
with beach umbrellas and helping him keep his balance in the water.
But there was nothing that could be done to save him, and at 3:30
pm the dolphin took his last breath. Several people, including
grownups, started crying when they realized the dolphin was dead.
Although it was a sad scene it was also one of tremendous hope
and encouragement for the One Voice team: We had recently returned
from Taiji, Japan, where whalers intentionally drive hundreds
of dolphins ashore and kill them in the most gruesome way imaginable.
One day we witnessed the capture of more than 100 bottlenose dolphins,
and we were shocked to see whalers and dolphin trainers working
side by side to capture and beach the panic-stricken animals.
The trainers spent several hours selecting the ones they wanted
for their dolphinariums. Dragging the dolphins ashore with ropes,
they separated the mothers from their babies. The dolphins’
cries of distress were met with complete indifference from the
trainers.
“We love dolphins.” This is the dolphin captivity
industry’s first line of defense when confronted with the
questionable ethics of capturing and confining dolphins. Their
second line of defense is: “We are displaying dolphins to
teach the public respect for nature.” But there was no sign
of neither “love” nor "respect” for dolphins
on this tragic day where dolphin trainers mercilessly stranded
an entire pod of full-grown dolphins, juveniles, babies, as well
as pregnant and nursing females and dragged more than 20 of them
away from their pod members to be shipped to various dolphinariums.
Dolphin trainers simply stood by and watched as some of the dolphins,
in a massive effort to escape, got entangled in the whalers’
capture nets and, unable to reach the surface to breathe, died
a slow and painful death of suffocation. We witnessed how members
of the dolphin captivity industry, in their self-serving endeavor
to choose the dolphins that best fit the desired criteria for
dolphin shows and captive dolphin swim programs, knowingly and
calculatingly exposed dolphins to trauma, injuries, and death.
This is the dark side of dolphin captivity that the public is
never told about.
On South Point in Grand Cayman we saw a very different picture;
indeed a sharp contrast to the horror scenes in Taiji. Here, we
saw compassionate and caring people coming together in an extraordinary
effort to save a dolphin, with the ultimate goal of releasing
him back into the sea and reuniting him with his mother and other
pod members. Among the rescuers was Gina Ebanks-Petrie, head of
the Department of Environment. To the many dedicated volunteers
that comforted the dolphin in his final hours, he became a reminder
that these free-ranging and highly intelligent marine mammals
belong in the wild and that it is cruel to separate them from
the three most important aspects of their lives: Their immense
world of sound, their pod members, and the ability to move freely.
With this in mind, they named the dolphin “Freedom.”
Thanks to the admirable effort to rescue "Freedom,”
the issue of whether or not dolphins belong in captivity once
again became an issue of high interest to the media in the Cayman
Islands; something it hadn’t been in a long time.
To our knowledge, there are four proposals to bring captive dolphins
to the Cayman Islands. If the authorities approve the import of
captive dolphins, the Cayman Islands will become part of the dolphin
trade that nourishes its profits from deadly dolphin captures;
a procedure that leaves dolphin pods traumatized and destroyed.
The Cayman Islands will become supportive of an exploitative entertainment
industry that treats nature and its inhabitant in a manner that
works directly against the caring approach to nature we saw demonstrated
in South Sound the day “Freedom” died. Compassion
and care will be replaced with crudeness and greed. A passionate
effort to save life will be replaced with the act of permanently
destroying it by subjecting it to a violent capture and lifelong
confinement.
The “Keep Dolphins Free in the Cayman Islands” campaign
continues. “Freedom” died but in his death brought
new life to the effort to keep the Cayman Islands on the list
of tourist destinations that, rather than exploit captive dolphins
for profit, celebrate the dolphins’ way of life in their
vast marine environment -- wild and free.
Helene O'Barry
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