Marine Mammals

From: Animal People June 1997

River dolphin capture plans

	DALLAS––Rumors flying since November 1996 that major aquariums are conspiring to capture Amazon river dolphins, boto for short, were partially confirmed by the mid-April disclosure that the Dallas World Aquarium, not associated with the Dallas Zoo and Aquarium and not accredited by the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums, has applied to the National Marine Fisheries Service to import four boto for display.
Photograph courtesy of Earthtrust. To view a Quicktime movie of Amazon River dolphins, click on the image above. This 976 KB video clip takes approximately 8 minutes to download at 28.8 bps.
Representatives of at least 13 groups from the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Columbia, and Finland had protested to NMFS and the aquarium itself by April 21––but as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press on May 28, the application had yet to be formally accepted for publication, after which it will go through a 30-day public comment period before NMFS announces approval or rejection. NMFS spokesperson Catherine Anderson said the application was “under review” to see if it was complete, and that it would be released for comment “possibly within the next few weeks.”
Unverified reports from marine mammal activists claimed the four boto had already been captured in Venezuela by Hawaiian dolphin researcher Louis Herman and Mobi Solangi of Mississippi, who leases dolphins to various facilities for exhibit. Also said to be interested in obtaining some were the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Colorado’s Ocean Journey, the Hawaii-based Dolphin Institute, the Pittsburgh Zoo, a proposed aquarium in Norwalk, California, and the Duisberg Zoo in Germany.
	Image courtesy Voyage Publishing
“We have no plans to collect Amazon river dolphins and have no knowledge of a collection,” Shedd president Ted Beattie told ANIMAL PEOPLE on May 23, adding “Perhaps your source heard about some work (Shedd head trainer) Ken Ramirez may be doing in Venezuela later this year. Ken has been asked by the Fundacion Nacional de Parques Zoologicos y Acuarios, the South American equivalent of the American Zoo Association, to present modern training and husbandry techniques to many of the Latin American facilities with a focus on their river dolphins.” Colorado’s Ocean Journey indicated interest in stocking boto in 1992-1993, but pressured by the “No Dolphins in Denver” campaign mounted by Animal Rights Mobilization, eventually pledged it would exhibit no marine mammals. The Dolphin Institute, directed by Louis Herman and Adam Pack, last year sought unsuccessfully to build an aquarium and research station at Kanaha Beach in Maui. An extension of the University of Hawaii’s Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, the Dolphin Institute has four dolphins used in behavioral studies and a deadline from the Hawaii Community Development Authority to move to permit expansion of Ala Moana Park. A protest target since 1976, when activists Steve Sipman and Ken Lavasseur released two bottlenose dolphins from the facility in the first action attributed to the “Animal Liberation Front,” the Dolphin Institute might stand a better chance to win a prime site if it could claim a unique attraction. The Pittsburgh Zoo has the only boto now in the U.S., Chuckles, age 28, who last year was subject of an important court verdict about the extent of liability at animal care facilities, after biting a visitor for the second time. The ruling, favorable to the aquarium, was barely in before Chuckles bit another visitor. The zoo has announced no plans to acquire more boto. The Duisberg Zoo has two aging male botu, and is building a larger tank for them within a rainforest exhibit. According to the management, the tank will be used after the dolphins die to house captive-bred manatees, for whom space is scarce due to the fecundity of manatees rescued after collisions with boats, whose injuries prevent their return to the wild.