Letters to the Editor regarding the activities of Dolphin Fantaseas:

The Antigua Sun, November 13 2001: 

A small environmental issue made into a big political one.

Dear Editor, 

The Government of Antigua & Barbuda has chosen to make a perfectly legitimate environmental issue a hard-core political one, by not permitting Ric O’Barry entrance into Antigua. 

I say it is a perfectly legitimate environmental issue because it is as legitimate as saving the whales, saving the mangroves, or protecting turtles.  We have  available to us an expert on dolphins, their capture, and the effect captivity has upon them.

In order to prevent the people of Antigua & Barbuda from becoming educated on the mater,  whereby they make their own personal decision, our government has not allowed him to enter the country. 

The ALP has decided to control things that a democratically elected government has no business interfering with,, namely our right to free speech, our right to education, our right to make legal decisions on our own. They made this political and it is the worst mistake they ever made. People don’t like the feeling that they are living in a Cuban, or Afghanistyle country, where the government decides what you can learn, what you can read, what you can see, and what you can speak about. This is sick, and I will remain ashamed to be Antiguan from today, unless this is changed immediately with an apology, not just to Mr. O’Barry, but to the Antiguan people.

The capture of dolphins is now a tiny issue next to the issue now at hand. Imagine how this makes us look abroad. Wait till the international media get a hold on this one. 

Eli Fuller
 

The Daily Observer, November 19 2001: 

National Insecurity?

As an important step in their scheme to broker captive dolphins for other dolphin captivity facilities in the Caribbean, Dolphin Fantaseas has recently sent three wild-caught Cuban dolphins to your island to be used in a dolphin swim program for tourists.

If you look at the website of Dolphin Fantaseas you will see that their main purpose is to “give people the opportunity to gain an understanding of this fascinating mammal.” I would like to comment on this statement: The key to understanding why captivity of dolphins is wrong is understanding what dolphins are like in nature. It is understanding the difference between life for a dolphin in nature compared with life in captivity.

Please consider this:

In nature dolphins enjoy the ability to move freely. Their streamlined bodies and smooth skin enable them to gain fast speed, and bottlenose dolphins are always on the move, swimming up to 40 miles a day. They spend only 10-20 percent of their time on the surface of the water. They can hold their breath for as long as 20 minutes and dive to depths of more than 1,640 feet.

In captivity dolphins are restricted to the size of their tank or enclosure. Totally deprived of expressing their natural abilities they can only swim a few feet before a wall or a fence stops them.

In nature dolphins constantly send out bursts of sounds of many different frequencies to explore their ocean environment. With reflected sound, called echolocation or sonar, dolphins can detect elements that are invisible for animals that are sight oriented, depending on reflected light for vision. The use of sonar is as important to dolphins as eyesight to humans, and dolphins rely on their sense of sonar in almost every aspect of their daily lives.

In captivity dolphins are severely restricted in using their sonar. They can't use it to catch live fish as they are fed dead fish as food rewards. Neither can they put it to full use to explore their underwater world because there isn't much to explore in a barren, concrete tank or a small cage in the sea. They certainly can’t use it to navigate, because they aren’t going anywhere. Sensory deprivation is one of the most damaging aspects of keeping dolphins in captivity.

In nature most dolphins spend their entire lives in the company of dolphins of their own kind, living in groups known as pods. Some pods consist of females and their offspring; others of young males who -- when they reach maturity -- leave their mother’s pod to form their own. Dolphins are very intelligent and social animals. Belonging to a pod is important to them because this is where they find safety, love, and companionship.

In captivity dolphins are forever separated from the pod they naturally belong to. Instead, they are forced to live in an artificial “pod,” designed by humans for commercial reasons. During the capture of dolphins the strong social bonds that they have enjoyed and nurtured for years are abruptly and permanently destroyed.

Dolphins and other whales have evolved over more than 50 million years and have adapted perfectly to their vast marine environment. They are intelligent, social, and self-aware, exhibiting evidence of a highly developed emotional sense. Imagine the panic they must experience as they are yanked from the ocean, forever separated from their immense world of sound, their ability to swim freely, and their pod. It is hardly surprising that dolphins have died from shock during capture. 

Fact is, lifelong confinement violates a dolphin’s most fundamental behavioral requirements. The captive dolphins of Antigua will never swim in a straight line for as long as they desire; nor will they ever be able to use their speed, intelligence, sonar, and sense of cooperation to catch live fish. They will never again experience what it means to be a real dolphin, in a dolphin's real world -- the open sea. By human design these free-ranging and complex marine mammals are confined to a very small space where, for the rest of their lives, they will have to satisfy a never-ending line of tourists demanding casual amusement.

Is this cruel? Of course it is. Yet Dolphin Fantaseas will have you believe that what they are doing to the dolphins is right. They will have you believe they are not in the business of trading in dolphins for the money. They will even go as far as to say that they are doing the dolphins a big favor by capturing and confining them, and then they will tell you that, guess what,  they are sentencing dolphins to lifelong captivity to teach you, the consumer, respect for nature. And that is the height of hypocrisy that this industry is based upon.

On their website, Dolphin Fantaseas goes on to say about dolphins that they are “powerful ambassadors of their species, and we are obligated to safeguard their natural sea-lifestyles.”

No, I’m not kidding, that’s precisely what they say: “we are obligated to safeguard their natural sea-lifestyles.”

And this statement comes from a company that makes its living doing the exact opposite! They are capturing dolphins from the wild, tearing them apart from their pod members, permanently and violently separating them from their natural environment, thereby destroying their natural sea-lifestyles.

To claim that captivity of dolphins serves the noble purpose of being educational is nothing more than propaganda used to sanitize the commercial exploitation of these animals. It’s cunning. It’s deceptive. But it works. It works because the public buys into it. And why does the public buy into it? Is it because they are bad people and wish harm to dolphins? Of course not. It’s because they don’t have all the information.  This is why it is so important to educate the public to what goes on behind the glittering surface of the captive dolphin swim program. With this in mind my husband, Richard O’Barry of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, had accepted an invitation to come to your beautiful island nation to speak about the plight of captive dolphins. But he was banned by the Immigration Office of Antigua for reasons of “national security.”

One must wonder if the decision to ban O’Barry was based on a wish to deprive the people of Antigua of their fundamental right to hear both sides of the dolphin captivity issue.

And to me, that looks more like national insecurity.

Helene O’Barry
 

The Daily Observer, November 21 2001:

Impressed With Turnout At Dolphin Lecture

Dear Sir,

I was very impressed and  greatly encouraged at the turnout for the lecture on dolphins on Tuesday evening. I was beginning to despair that it was, like so many others, another dead issue. There seem to be an apathy that sets in after an issue has made headlines and, as a result, there is much hoopla and very little action.

I find that my faith in humans has been restored somewhat as the gathering of supporters for the dolphins seemed set on not letting the issue die. Education is the key to change and the number of people who came out is a clear indication that people not only want to learn, they want to change.

What would have impressed me more would have been the presence of those with vested interests in the dolphin park being on-hand to answer questions from their point of view. I was dead set against the dolphin park before the lecture and am more so now, but I can’t help but wonder what “the other side” thinks.

I have great admiration for those who have stood by their convictions and gone on with the scheduled speech. Imagine my surprise when I had the opportunity to listen to Mr. O’Barry in spite of the obstacles thrown in his way.

We should all be as committed as Mr. O’Barry and the organizers here in Antigua.

L. Hendrix
 

The Daily Observer, November 27 2001: 

Dear Sir, 

I have been reading with great interest the controversy surrounding the recent opening of the dolphin project in Antigua.However, the one question that no one seems to be addressing is this:  

Who is this person John J. Mezzanotte whom the government of Antigua has given these permits to?  Not only has John Mezzanotte been given a permit to establish a dolphin swim facility in Antigua but also to capture up to 12 dolphin annually from Antigua waters with permission to export them to outside sources? How is John J. Mezzanotte affiliated with this dolphin situation? That is the question someone should be investigating. 

A. Hopkins

The Daily Observer, December 11 2002:

Who are the real radical fanatics?  

Dear Sir, 

I was astonished to read the statements made by the Director of the Ministry of Planning, Daven Joseph, in regards to the captive dolphin facility of Antigua. (The Daily Observer, Dec. 6). According to Joseph, people who oppose the activities of Dolphin Fantaseas make use of radical fanaticism to put forth their cause. 

Joseph seems to overlook some significant points: 

To dolphins, life in the open sea is the natural way of life. Over more than 50 million years they have adapted perfectly to their vast marine environment. Swimming up to 40 miles a day, they are always on the move. To dolphins, a concrete tank or small sea cage is a radically altered habitat. In this unnatural setting their natural abilities can find no expression. The dolphins held captive in Antigua were taken from the wild to be used in a dolphin swim program, intended to attract more tourists to the island. The dolphins didn’t ask for this job. They are here by human design, and from their perspective it is the people who subjected them to a violent capture and sentenced them to lifelong confinement that are radical. From now on, the dolphins will be trained by the means of food control to perform a series of abnormal behaviors. No more swimming mile after mile. No more chasing and catching live prey. Their natural way of life has been abruptly and permanently destroyed. From the dolphins’ perspective, captivity is a radical change in their existence; thus the acts implemented on dolphins by their keepers are radical. It is nature turned upside down.

People who speak out against the capture and confinement of dolphins are only radical in the eyes of those who believe that subjecting dolphins to these crimes against nature is acceptable. So, from the dolphins’ point of view, who are the real radical fanatics? 

Helene O’Barry