The Case against Marine Mammals in Captivity - The Humane ...

This is one of the glaring loopholes of the current CITES NDF structure—aslong as the exporting country certifies that the trade followsscientific principles (with no independent verification) andbreaks no national or local laws, no CITES violation occurs. Thefact that CITES does not have any oversight or review mechanismsto determine the validity of an NDF—many of which are oftenrevealed as faulty or at least questionable after the trade has takenplace—is one of the reasons an increasing number of membernations are calling at a minimum for an end to trade with nonmembercountries.Bottlenose dolphinsA primary “hot spot” for bottlenose dolphin captures is the Caribbean.Cuban authorities have issued capture permits for, on average,15 bottlenose dolphins per year from national waters and foras many as 28 dolphins in one year. 61 To date, there have been noreported population estimates or completed assessments of thestocks of cetaceans in the coastal waters of Cuba, nor any studiesto determine whether these removals are sustainable or whetherthey are having an impact on Cuban dolphin populations. 62 Manyof these animals have been sold to other facilities in the Caribbean(with others being exported to Europe and Mexico), 63 yet clearlyany NDF Cuba has issued to support this trade has no substancebehind it. Therefore, exports of dolphins from Cuba should theoreticallybe prohibited under international regulations; however,they continue unchallenged.Dolphin mortality shoots up six-fold during and immediatelyafter capture. The ordeal is stressful and can cause physicalinjuries. Photo: COMARINOMany captures in the developing world are carried out fromsmall boats, using home-made equipment (nets and slings)that can injure dolphins. Photo: COMARINOThe issue of the Cuban dolphin trade raised concerns at the IWC,where the Scientific Committee stated that “there is currently nobasis for assessing the sustainability of these takes as no abundancedata were available for Cuba.” 64 The IUCN Cetacean SpecialistGroup (CSG) has also identified the investigation of live-capturesof bottlenose dolphins from Cuba as one of its priority projects,due to concerns about the potential for depletion of coastalstocks of these animals. Similar concerns were also voiced forcatches of coastal bottlenose dolphins in Mexican waters in theGulf of Mexico. 65 The IUCN CSG has recommended that, at a minimum,50 genetic samples (through biopsy darting) and at leastthree complete surveys (using appropriate scientific methods)must be done before the status of these animals can be determined,and therefore before any captures should be considered. 66Even members of the public display industry have expressed theirconcerns about the trade in Cuban dolphins. The director of theDolphin Academy, a dolphinarium on the island of Curaçao in theCaribbean, expressed outrage when her co-tenants on the island,Curaçao Sea Aquarium, proposed an import of six Cuban dolphins.She called the import “immoral” and worried that associationby proximity with these captures would bring her facility intodisrepute. However, the imports went ahead, with one dolphindying soon after transfer, and newspaper articles reported thatthe director was fired for speaking out against the trade. 67Many members of the general public believe captures of wildcetaceans are a thing of the past, encouraged in this mistakenbelief by the public display industry. Indeed, in the United Statesthere have been no captures of bottlenose dolphins from the wildsince 1989. 68 However, captures are increasing in other parts ofthe world—recent examples include one in December 2000, wheneight bottlenose dolphins were captured off the Pacific coast ofthe Baja California Sur peninsula. They were then transportedto the Dolphin Learning Center dolphinarium at the La Conchabeach resort in La Paz, Mexico, on the peninsula’s Sea of Cortezside. In another incident, in August 2002, eight bottlenose dolphinswere captured from the coastal waters of the Parque Nacional delEste (National Park of the East) in the Dominican Republic andsent to a local facility, Manatí Park. A third capture occurred overseveral months in 2003, when entrepreneurs in Solomon Islands8