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Dolphin dies after flight to Mexico
30th July 2003
smh.com.au
Mexico's federal environmental agency confirmed today that one of the dolphins imported this month from the Solomon Islands to a Cancun aquatic park has died.
Mexican authorities were notified on Monday of the dolphin's death at the privately operated Parque Nizuc in the Caribbean resort of Cancun, environment department spokesman Jaime Alejo said.
Animal welfare activists and the Australian government had asked Mexico to block the arrival last week of a shipment of at least 28 dolphins by plane from the south Pacific islands. But officials from the Mexican environmental protection agency said Parque Nizuc had met all legal requirements.
The environmental protection agency did not yet know the cause or circumstances of the death, Alejo said. Federal environmental prosecutors will be responsible for investigating the dolphin's death, he said.
Parque Nizuc had late last week opened its doors to several environmentalists, allowing them to examine 28 dolphins brought from the Solomon Islands amid an international uproar over animal rights.
Local environmentalist Sara Rincon, one of the activists allowed into Parque Nizuc, told reporters that the three sea corrals holding the mammals were too small.
The activists also complained that several of the dolphins appeared to be in shock because they were hardly moving.
Officials for Mexico's federal environmental agency said they met the plane that brought the dolphins on July 25 and that only 28 were aboard. All had survived, they said.
Environmental groups, including Greenpeace, have repeatedly insisted that more than 30 dolphins were actually loaded onto the plane and that two were seen being pulled dead from the sea shortly after arriving in Cancun.
However, Rincon and others said photos of the allegedly dead dolphins were not clear enough to offer as proof.
Activists and the Australian government had asked Mexico to block the dolphins' arrival. But officials from the Mexican environmental protection agency said Parque Nizuc had met all legal requirements.
The Mexican federal comptroller's office last week said it was investigating environmentalists' complaints that the government had violated its own laws and regulations, and that its report was expected in 15 days.
Ethnic conflicts have devastated the Solomons over the past five years, and a multinational intervention force arrived last week to try to restore order.
Greenpeace has demanded that the Mexican government seize the dolphins and send them back to the Solomons, even though activists complained that the long plane trip to Mexico itself had endangered the animals.
Activists argue the dolphins could spread diseases to other marine life off the coast of Cancun and should be in their natural habitat.
Parque Nizuc is one of several Cancun attractions that charge tourists $US100 ($A152) or more to swim with dolphins.
The park said it plans to train the new dolphins over the next four months to interact safely with humans.
Most large water parks, including those in the United States, use only dolphins they breed in captivity. But the growing popularity of parks that allow tourists to swim with dolphins has encouraged some parks to seek captured animals.
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