No more cruelty to dolphins, please

MANILA, Philippines - At least 60 animal welfare volunteers attended the candle-lighting ceremony and vigil at the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) Animal Rehabilitation Center in Quezon City last Sunday.

It was a short and simple ceremony to “express sadness” over the death of Wen-Wen the dolphin — who was among the 25 wild-caught dolphins exported from Subic, Philippines to Singapore. 

It was also a form of peaceful protest.

The death could have been prevented if government officials had heeded the warnings of Earth Island Institute, PAWS and Compassion And Responsibility for Animals (CARA) — for closer monitoring of the dolphins being trained in Ocean Adventure.

“The Committee on Animal Welfare, the Animal Welfare Division, did not get to inspect these dolphins in their enclosure. Neither were the dolphins placed in quarantine nor inspected by officials of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) as they granted permits for the exports,” said Anna Cabrera, PAWS executive director. “The whole process of granting the permits was the routing of papers without consideration for the welfare of the animals.”

To add insult to injury, the exportation of the marine mammals was done while hearings on the extension of the Temporary Protection Order for the dolphins were ongoing at the Quezon City environmental court. 

“The lawyers of Resorts World Sentosa, BFAR and DA attended the court hearing on one of the days when a batch of dolphins were flown to Singapore,” added Trixie Concepcion, regional director for Asia of Earth Island Institute (EII). “Our lawyer, Mel Velasco, was standing there — arguing why the dolphins should not be allowed to be exported — and yet, the opposing lawyers never bothered to tell the court that the dolphins were already being transported.”

“I would imagine that this must have made the judge angry,” one of those who attended the hearing said. “But the judge did not look angry nor surprised.”

Nevertheless, the said Quezon City Court ordered Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa, the Philippine Department of Agriculture and BFAR to answer PAWS-EII and CARA’s  motion to have them cited for contempt for transporting the dolphins despite ongoing hearings.

According to the petition of PAWS, CARA, EII. the re-export of dolphins was in violation of the Wildlife Act (RA 9147) and the commitments of the Philippines under the CITES Treaty. (The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is an international agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. The Philippines ratified CITES on Aug. 18, 1981 and entered into force on Nov. 16, 1981.)

Studies included in the PAWS-CARA-EII petition cited that dolphins harvested from the Solomon Islands and imported into the country in batches in December 2008, January 2009 and January 2011, threatened the survival of the wild populations in the Solomon Islands.

The dolphins were caught from the wild from the Solomon Islands and were imported by RWS into the Philippines for training at Ocean Adventure despite scientific reports from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) stating that the harvest of wild dolphins from the Solomon Islands could put the survival of the species at risk.

The IUCN report titled “Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin Assessment Workshop Report” estimates that the population of this particular species in the island nation is less than 5,000 individuals. To protect the species from extinction, the Solomon Island government banned dolphin hunts in their territorial waters starting Jan. 1, 2012. Island officials have also limited the captures to one dolphin every five years.

“Imagine that we allowed 25 dolphins from the Solomon Islands to be trained here. That number represents what the Solomon Island government has declared to be sustainable captures over the period of 125 years,” Concepcion said.  She expressed dismay at the “lack of environmental justice.”

Cabrera mentions a meeting with a BFAR official where it was said that they (BFAR officials) were afraid of being sued by RWS.

“We have repeatedly tried to ask for information about the impending exports, tried a dialogue with BFAR but the officials seemed to be primarily concerned with processing the papers for RWS over listening to environmentalists and animal welfare advocates.  They even ignored recommendations of CITES marine mammal experts in the Philippines — the National Museum and Siliman University.”

CARA president Nancy Cu-Unjieng is also puzzled, “Why is BFAR granting permits for the exports of dolphins when dolphins are not fish?” she asks.