International Marine Mammal Project
A battered Dallas World Aquarium (DWA) has withdraw it's application to import four endangered pink river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) from the Amazon River ["Dolphin Debacle," Summer '97 EIJ].
Earth Island's Mark Berman hailed the decisions as "a victory for dolphins and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) over big money interests and all self-promoting exhibitionists who want to practice exploitation under the guise of 'dolphin protection' and captive breeding programs."
The river dolphins were to be the centerpiece of the aquarium's new exhibit, "Orinoco - Secrets of the River." DWA officials claimed that the exhibit would promote conservation and dolphin preservation. Environmentalists countered that dolphins only survive an average of four years in captivity and noted that there has never been a successful captive birth. The environmentalists observed that the placement of the dolphin tank window - within the DWA's restaurant complex - was a more revealing indication of the aquarium's true motivations.
While the DWA had won approval to import the dolphins from Venezuelan officials, the aquarium still needed an import permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) under the dolphin protection statues of the MMPA. The DWA and its public relations team assumed the project would gain quick approval during the import permit's 30-day public comment period.
Luckily for the river dolphins, an unforeseen difficulty arose in the person of Earth Island's anti-marine mammal captivity expert, Mark Berman.
Working 12-hour days and sacrificing weekends, Berman's "one-person-should-make-a-difference" tenacity galvanized an international body of scientists and environmentalists that flooded the NMFS with letters opposing the DWA's plan.
Berman also co-sponsored a protest outside the DWA with the help of several Dallas-based animal welfare groups, most notably Animal Liberation of Texas. Before the 30-day public comment period ended, DWA officials withdrew the proposal to avoid the humiliation of a certain NMFS rejection.
Berman's efforts were greatly enhanced by the timely arrival at Earth Island of visiting Colombian cetacean researcher Salome Dussan.
"This project could not stand up to the light of scientific scrutiny," said Dussan "Removing endangered pink river dolphins degrades the entire Amazon ecosystem, is detrimental for the dolphins themselves and signals an unwise retreat from habitat preservation within the greater Amazon region to unnatural and inferior habitat replication."
The international coalition formed to prevent the capture of the four inia is now calling for greater conservation measures, further scientific studies and greater inter-American co-operation to preserve this highly endangered species.
EII Activist Wins Victory for River Dolphins