Dolphin
Update
The
world's Loneliest Dolphin
Demon lies listlessly in the seal pool at Sydney's Taronga Zoo.
He is now 30 years old. Captured at five, he spent his time between four oceanariums
before being bought by Stafford Bullen in 1977 for his African Lion Safari at Warragamba
in Sydney's west.
Last year his three mates died and in February Bullen was forced
to sell the park when the NSW Government bought in regulations that would force the
upgrading of many of its facilities. The Government offered to keep Demon temporarily at
Taronga until another oceanarium can take him.
Steve Romer has been responsible for Demon since he arrived at
Taronga. ``Several parks are considering taking Demon and it is my greatest wish he will
soon be able to spend his remaining years with his own kind. That is what he deserves.''
New Idea Magazine 8 June 1991 p.14 |
 Of the remaining three dolphins in the
Lion Park, two died and the last survivor was sent to the Taronga Park Zoo in
Sydney after the Lion Park went bankrupt, from there it was sent to the Sea Life
Park in Brisbane where he died.
New
South Wales outlawed dolphinaria for recreation, although a large salt
water lake near Coffs Harbour is used as a rehabilitation center for
injured dolphins.
The Australian National Marine Mammal
holding laws were completely overhauled to prevent such mistreatment from happening again,
anywhere in Australia.
Victoria became the first Australian state
to completely outlaw the taking or holding of dolphins or other marine mammals.
South Australia followed.
The oceanarium in Perth closed down and the
dolphins were placed in a half-way house for six months and then released back into the
ocean. In 1984, three years after our efforts to restructure
Australia's thinking about captive dolphins, Marine World Victoria
applied for a permit to build an US$ 18 million oceanarium to house at
least a dozen captive cetaceans. The Australian Senate appointed a
Select Committee on Animal Welfare. It held a series of public hearings
in 1985 and received voluminous testimony on the issue of "Dolphins
and Whales in Captivity."
In December 1985, the committee issued a 117 page
report "Dolphins and Whales in Captivity," (Australian
Government Publishing Service Canberra) citing extensive public
criticism of oceanaria "for painful and stressful capture
techniques, the high mortality rate of captive cetacea, and a captive
environment which was not able to provide for the cetacean's social or
biological needs."
The committee concluded "that the benefits of
oceanaria in Australia for humans and cetacea are no longer sufficient
to justify the adverse effects of capture for captivity." The
Committee recommended that no new facilities be established in
Australia, that existing oceanaria be allowed to continue, and "the
keeping of cetacea should eventually be phased out unless further
research justifies their continuance."
Today, in Australia, only Queensland allows dolphins to be kept in
captivity for circus shows, largely due to the political prowess of the owner of the Sea
Life Park in Brisbane, which I hope you will never visit.
My dream of seeing humans interacting with dolphins in the sea has
become reality, without any additional help from me.
A man in Western Australia decided to ask a
group of dolphins to come into a beach to play with disabled children. He swam with them
for several months, getting closer and more familiar with each day. Somehow they figured
out what he wanted and they did, indeed, go to the beach to play with disabled children.
The children come from all over Australia and the remarkable joy the dolphins bring them
is stunning. It is important that the dolphins are not enticed with food and have never
been fed to play with the children. They do it for love.
Dolphin
watching and swimming with wild dolphins is now a major tourist activity
in Australia and New Zealand. In New South Wales alone there are now
more than 50 operators conducting cetacea-based tourism activities.
They range from watching humpback whales and dolphins in Merimbula to
sea kyacking with dolphins in Byron Bay. A bevy of laws protect
the rights of the wild dolphins from overzealous tourism operators.
It is against Federal whale-watching guidelines to swim with dolphins
or whales except under carefully regulated and licensed tourism operators.
The industry is worth about $10,000,000 a year. Stafford Bullen missed
out in a big way.
Australia
imposes fines up to $100,000 and jail terms for killing, injuring, or
deliberately interfering with whales or dolphins.
Dolphin and whale watching is also a major industry
In the United States. There has been a steadily growing opposition to
keeping dolphins and whales in circus tanks for the amusement of the
unfeeling public mind. But Orcas and dolphins are still imprisoned in
circus swimming pools (including "research" facilities). Greenpeace
still isn't quite sure if this is OK or not. Dolphins and whales are
still being slaughtered at sea, despite the fact that Greenpeace has
become more respectable and thousands of hours of conferences and workshops
have belabored the issue of murder of the mind of the waters.
Free Willy, a major motion picture made the plight
of captive killer whales internationally known. But the star, freed
in the film, was never actually released.
Do Something
If you think committees or organizations will "do
something," about these interspecies atrocities, you are helping
perpetuate the
decline of the intelligence of this planet: both human and cetacean intelligence.
"Somebody should do something," is the rally-cry of
the whimps. If you see insanity and immorality, don't organize, don't run to authority.
Aren't YOU somebody? What can you do about it? This is the real moral of the
dolphin episode. The way to save our planet is personal responsibility; individual action.
We may be trapped in our destined paths, but we still have the ability to nudge the
megabeast in the right direction. If we want to.
Since this is a very important and serious issue, it
just now occurs to me the I Ching should have something to add to this.
Boldly, I get out my coins and take the Honored Sage off Moira's starboard
bookshelf. I rattle the coins, throw them and here is what I Ching has
to say when I ask it if it has anything to add about individual action
in the fight to end Mankind's stupidity against Mankind's own environment.
"45. Break-Through - Resoluteness." I Ching explains,
"In a resolute struggle of the good against evil, there are definite rules that must
not be disregarded, if it is to succeed. First, resolution must be based on a union of
strength and friendliness. Second, a compromise with evil is not possible; evil must under
all circumstances be openly discredited. Third, the struggle must not be carried on
directly by force. If evil is branded, it thinks of weapons, and if we do it the favor of
fighting against it blow for blow, we lose in the end because thus we ourselves get
entangled in hatred and passion. Therefore it is important to begin at home, to be on
guard in our own persons against the faults we have branded. In this way, finding no
opponent, the sharp edges of the weapons of evil become dulled."
Man-alive! There it is. The I Ching does it again.
Environmental problems can only be solved by each individual doing
the right thing themselves. That's how to fight. The battle will never be won by
institutions fighting institutions. Don't donate, act. Save your money and your time.
Boycott the nasties. Stay away from dolphinaria and Sea Worlds and
Marine-Lands in droves.
And if you would like
to order one of Frederique's graceful and
solid sterling silver Magic Dolphin Rings.
Click
here.
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