Greed, Corruption and Captivity

By William Rossiter, CSI President

Greed, Corruption and Captive Dolphin Displays go together, as shown by recent events linking Mexico, the Solomon Islands and an expanding worldwide market.

Four more La Paz dolphins have died from injuries from a hurricane, as they were left exposed to the storm in flimsy sea pens with rusting wire sides of the FINS dolphinarium in La Paz, Mexico. The infamous facility had told officials that it had a storm contingency plan, and an inland dolphinarium had offered to keep the seven dolphins safe, but nothing was done for the dolphins. Most of the dolphins were rumored to be sick before the storm struck, victims of the summer's very warm, fluctuating water temperatures, and polluted runoff from previous storms.

PROFEPA, Mexico's environmental enforcement agency, knows that they bear considerable responsibility for these deaths, as they scrambled a team of experts to La Paz after the storm. They finally may have a plan to send the three surviving but weak dolphins to another facility in Puerto Vallarta. A decision on their fate will come very soon, but it continues to be mired in politics. The agency officially but meekly had confiscated the dolphins previously, after the proof of inadequacies, infractions, and illegalities at FINS could no longer be ignored. Cowed by the powerful Governor Montaño of Baja, who may even have legal custody of the dolphins, PROFEPA's confiscation was on paper only. The operators continued to profit from displaying the dolphins and especially from promoting swim-with-the-dolphin experiences. The Governor opposes serious actions to help the dolphins, seeing a chance to boost tourism with a new facility that would have the dolphins swimming with a whale shark! But funds have not been raised and talk is cheap. He even managed to moderate the media coverage of the La Paz deaths.

The now disgusted local congress voted unanimously to rehabilitate and release the dolphins where they were caught, nearly three years ago. Local NGOs have joined the effort to save the survivors. The chief inspector was fired after this last death. La Paz is embarrassed.

You can help. Please politely email the Mexican officials below, asking them to give the three surviving dolphins to the Mexican NGO "Conservación de Mamíferos Marinos de México", (COMARINO), for their rehabilitation and reintroduction to the waters of Magdalena Bay: (1) Ing Alberto Cardenas, Secretario del Medio Ambiente, SEMARNAT, secretario@semarnat.gob.mx, (2) Ing. Jose Luis Luege Tamargo, Procurador del Medio Ambiente, PROFEPA, jlluege@correo.profepa.gob.mx, (3) Lic. Diana Ponce Nava, Subprocuradora de Recursos Naturales. PROFEPA, dponcenava@correo.profepa.gob.mx, (4) Dr. Jose Bernal, Director de Vida Silvestre. PROFEPA, jbernal@correo.profepa.gob.mx.

Xel-Ha, another of Cancun's swim-with dolphinariums, was shut down finally by local authorities within days of the Solomon's dolphins arriving at neighboring Parque Nizuc (see below). Xel-Ha was selling alcohol illegally, had failed to pay taxes, and even had a permit for operating in the wrong town. But they were selling a lot of swim-with tickets.

The Solomon Islands Dolphin Tragedy was discovered by accident in early July, when an Australian journalist and a photographer in the remote Pacific islands discovered that about 60 dolphins were in shallow, polluted pens, more were rumored elsewhere, local fishermen were paid the equivalent of US$260 for each live dolphin, reefs were being dynamited to provide fish to keep the growing numbers of dolphins alive, armed gangs guarded the pens, and one dolphin had been killed by a crocodile.

They had discovered a scheme to take advantage of the chaos in the nearly lawless Solomon Islands (SI), which was disintegrating from several years of racial, feudal violence. The exploitation of the impoverished people and vulnerable dolphins intended to corner the exploding worldwide demand for captive display dolphins, with a 2000 percent profit for a still-shadowy syndicate of international investors. The syndicate manipulated officials, exploited regulatory loopholes, and exposed sluggish, compromised bureaucracies. It caused a tidal wave of concern for the laws and treaties which nations have tried to create to prevent such tragedies, particularly the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

In January Marine Exports Ltd. received a Fish Processing Establishment License from the SI Director of Fisheries, for permits in association with the Solomon Islands Marine Mammal Education Centre Ltd. (SIMMEC). Both companies share the same directors and shareholders, and are managed by Christopher Porter, a Canadian citizen.

Porter said he wanted to build a resort on Gavutu island, 25 kilometers from the capital, Honiara. The resort would boost tourism, with luxury cabins overlooking dolphin pools, and educate fishermen not to kill dolphins unnecessarily. Naturally, he received government approval, licenses, and a permit for Marine Exports Ltd. to export 100 dolphins per year. Meanwhile he attracted participants from China, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Porter, a member of the International Marine Animal Trainers Association (IMATA), had worked at Sealand of the Pacific and the Vancouver Aquarium and, representing his company, Waves Consulting, had said he was currently a Marine Mammal Consultant for Italy's Aquario di Genova Aquarium. By July Genova had distanced itself from Porter as much as possible.

Other people involved included consulting vet Ted Hammond, who has participated in the infamous Taiji drive fisheries and was a consultant to the new Nagoya Port Aquarium and others in Japan, China, and Taiwan. Chief trainer Mike Schultz, former director of training for Dolphin Experience, Bahamas, directed animal care at Gavutu.

Looking back on the flurry since July, it is a wonder such a syndicate has not operated before, and perhaps they did and just were not caught. The only good to come out of what has happened in the Solomons is that it may be more difficult to catch the world by surprise again.

Dolphins in the Honiara pen.
Photo courtesy Frances Gulland/IUCN

Instead of a resort, Porter's company built at least two crude, shallow water pens fenced with wire, rope and mango tree posts, set in a small natural harbor, guarded by armed gangs. By April impoverished fishermen were receiving US$260 for each acceptable dolphin. How many others were injured or killed is unknown, but initial rumors that up to 200 dolphins had made it to the pens alive seemed to be discounted by a later inspection (see below).

The Honiara pen was the staging pen for transfer to the airport. More accessible than the less primitive pens later discovered at Gavutu, it received most media attention. Up to 43 dolphins were counted here, but the numbers varied. After the news broke a New Zealand TV crew was chased off and their boatman beaten for over five minutes, and other journalists reported having their film and videotapes confiscated. Even the British High Commissioner had his boat harassed by a local gang hired to guard the dolphin pens.

The woes of the tiny state of the Solomon Islands, ignored until then by most of world, was suddenly center stage with the discovery of the dolphins. For months the social chaos and ethnic violence from rampaging warlords and armed gangs in the Solomon Islands had left the central government so powerless that Prime Minister Alan Kemakeza had pleaded for armed intervention by Australia and New Zealand. Both nations sent 2300 troops and police, even as local headlines listed beheadings and surging crime.

By August there had been two known inspections by outsiders, but many questions remained. Finally, after considerable effort and delay, a team representing the IUCN/Species Survival Commission's Cetacean Specialist Group (CSG) and Veterinary Specialist Group (VSG) was invited formally to inspect the facilities in early September. The now-public report and photographs are available from CSI and other sources. The team made escorted visits to the pens at Honiara and Gavutu, and met with staff of SIMMEC and the NGO Environmental Concerns Action Network of Solomon Islands (ECANSI). No government ministers were available at the time of the visit. Because of "travel advisories" for the security of outsiders, the team's inspection was short, but most goals were met.

The team was not told of any medical problems, and did no tests. There were no food intake or behavioral records to review. They reported verbal accounts that the dolphins received "up to" 8 kg of food per day, a combination of local and frozen fish, and that implanted electronic tags, body size, and dorsal fin shape individually identified all the dolphins. Fishing by dynamite is an ongoing local custom, and the amount of fish procured this way for the dolphins was uncertain. Earlier reports had emphasized the destruction of significant resources to feed the dolphins.

The IUCN team reported that between June and September at least 94 dolphins were involved, 27 of which were released, mostly "unsuitable" males. 41 captive dolphins were counted during the visit, 24 at Gavutu and 17 at Honiara. At least one was a calf born in the pens. Common bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus were possibly there, but unverified. One pantropical spotted dolphin Stenella attenuata was there, the only survivor of a traditional drive hunt at the Malaitian village of Fanelei in April, when 417 dolphins were killed for food, and for their teeth, because up to four dolphins' teeth may be necessary for a traditional bridal dowry necklace.

Beyond the chaos, the realities of the Solomon Islands are jarring. The nine dolphin species killed at Fanelei are ranked by the value of their teeth, with the slaughter blessed by the Anglican Bishop. Bottlenose dolphins are said to have the worst teeth, but taste good. Several thousand dolphins and small whales are slaughtered there every year. Yet in other parts of the Solomons it is taboo to harm dolphins.

Given that Solomon Islanders distinguish species by teeth and taste, what happened to the dolphins that were rejected, released or escaped from captivity? The rejects were probably eaten; photographs show dolphins slaughtered for meat during the live captures. One shows a dolphin fetus. Most dolphins were netted as traditional killing methods were useless for animals that were to be exported for display looking as if they were healthy and happy. Think about that: a new technique for mass captures has been taught to people who have no concept of over-exploitation, enabling long term live meat markets in the future.

How did such an operation stay secret for so long? Although the Solomon Islands' Greenpeace representative may have known about the captures, he clearly had much else to deal with, and no word leaked out. By August Greenpeace had an active campaign against Marine Export.

Shocked only to find that no export duty had been paid, the Solomon Islands government has continued to support the capture operation with bureaucratic delays and mixed messages. The news is sparse these days, but the number of captive dolphins declines slowly. The water around the Honiara pens is too polluted for locals to swim in, and vulnerable to the monsoon season's weather that begins soon. SIMMEC says that the Honiara pens will be closed down after the remaining dolphins are moved to Gavutu, which implies no more exports. The 72 remaining dolphins are supposed to become a "swim-with-the-dolphin" program to attract visitors, housed in bungalows on Gavutu that do not exist yet. Given the numbers involved, and the remoteness of Gavutu, something smells fishy here. The export permit for 100 dolphins is valid until May 2004. While no evidence has been found that exports of dolphins were made before or after the shipment to Mexico, many statements by Porter, his associates, and the Solomon Island's government have been shown to be flawed and suspect. In the end profit is what it is all about, and stopping the profit is the only way to bring an end to the scheme.

One thing is certain; only good can come from helping the people of the Solomons to recover their country. In that spirit many organizations and individuals have attempted to support ECANSI, the Environmental Concern and Action Network for the Solomon Islands. CSI was pleased to facilitate a two page ad by ECANSI in the major newspaper in early September, the beginning of a public education program to instill more knowledge and respect for the Islands' dwindling marine resources. The draft Solomon Islands Wildlife Act offers some hope for the future. In time, and with international support, eco-tourism would be a likely source of desperately needed revenue, and whale and dolphin watching would be a far better growth industry than dolphin killing. CSI is eager to help with all those options.

Mexico appears to be the source of much of the funding for Porter's plan. By April Parque Nizuc Aquatic Amusement Park, located seaside in a national park in Cancun, had applied for a permit to import 33 dolphins from the Solomon Islands. Its 14 surviving bottlenose dolphins were captured in Mexico and Cuba. Some of the Solomon's dolphins were to be used for Parque Nizuc's swim-with-dolphins program, where some 60,000 tourists last year paid an extra US$86 to get wet, after a $28 admission fee. Polls confirm the tourists get minimal education, but feel the experience was exciting.

Some dolphins also were to be sold, which is why so many dolphins were imported. After January 2002 no dolphins could be caught in Mexican waters, and dolphin import prohibitions are being debated in a law now before the Mexican Senate. When the window closed the excess Solomon Island dolphins would become very, very valuable commodities to Parque Nizuc. Currently trained Mexican dolphins are worth up to $90,000 each, particularly to an exploding Caribbean market. They had only cost the Solomon's syndicate $260 each, and Parque Nizuc was happy to buy them at a rumored $46,000 each.

Aerial photo of the Parque Nizuc seapens.
Photo courtesy Dr. Yolanda Alaniz

Parque Nizuc is apparently owned by the Zambrano family; Roberto Zambrano is apparently president. He is also the son of the Chairman of Cemex, the world's largest cement manufacturer, President of PRONATURA, won the 2002 World Environment Center Gold Medal for International Corporate Environmental Achievement, serves on the board of IBM Corporation, is part of the Trilateral Committee (MEX/USA/CAN) on Wildlife Conservation, and seems to have close ties with the Administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Asserting they could properly transport and care for the 33 dolphins, and that the Solomon Islands' government approved of the sale, Parque Nizuc submitted documents to Mexico's Director of Wildlife for SEMARNAT, Mexico's environmental protection agency. After an inadequate review that everyone now regrets, the import permit was approved. There were so many clues; why did the Mexicans allow the import permit? Australia had urged Mexico to block the importation of Solomon Islands dolphins, citing problems with the regulations of CITES, but backed off when Mexico reportedly pressured Australia with their IWC support of anti-whaling sanctuaries. Mexico is adamant that the decision to allow the import was legal, although that may be challenged legally in the near future. Even while backing up the decision, if only to save face, the Mexico government is aware that the whole event was a mistake.

The regrettable import permit was based on a Solomon Islands "Non Detriment Finding" (NDF). The NDF was the official document from a qualified Solomon Islands expert that the trade of dolphins between the Solomons and Mexico would not be detrimental to the survival of the species, as required by CITES. Mexico took an enormous leap of blind faith in this flawed, three lined document. Dr. Jorge Soberon, CITES Scientific Authority, Mexico, said defensively that "the Mexican Scientific Authority took the decision to accept the Solomon's statement of non-detriment because we cannot simply assume, without further evidence, that the scientific authorities in a far away country are incompetent or venal." The essential truth is that nations not at war cannot easily reject each other's official statements without creating an incident.

Mexico has not even replied to the CITES Secretariat's request for a copy of the Solomons NDF, motivated by either embarrassment or corruption. Experts who have seen the NDF agree it did not "substantially conform" with CITES. The NDF had been written in June by an official who had advised his government that: "Since there is currently not enough data on wild stocks of the dolphin populations in Solomon Islands waters, the Environment and Conservation Division wishes to advise that further approvals for new operations on the exploitation of dolphins be curtailed". This official sent Mexico nothing on the population's status, distribution, trends or historical and recent exploitation. A jarred CITES now recognized that their current requirements for a NDF are exploitable, but they have not yet published tighter requirements. And when you get down to it, CITES may "recommend" and "urge", but cannot do much else to people or nations intent on ignoring international conventions.

The Mexican official that signed the permit also may have ignored PROFEPA's inspection report that Parque Nizuc was not suitable for the dolphins that were to be imported. And the CITES Secretariat's mid-May warnings were not taken seriously either. There are many resources that Mexico did not bother to review, but after the trade Mexico's Scientific Authority said it would not authorize future permits of that size from "that part of the world, unless accompanied with full and satisfactory documentation of the non-detriment statement." The lawyers later will sort out the surprising fact that the two export permits issued by the Ministry of Forests, Environment and Conservation in the Solomon Islands authorized the export of 120 bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus, while the Mexican import permit was for Tursiops aduncus, a separate species.

Delaying the permit to seek clarification was officially rejected, ostensibly because Mexican laws have mandatory time limits for authorities to respond to permit requests, but some believe it was approved under pressure that hints at corruption. What a difference a few days would have made, as international NGOs with considerable expertise supplied all the necessary data to deny the permit after the fact, but they had not known in time to prevent it. At least one Mexican NGO representative, not usually involved in captivity issues, seems to have been aware of the import request well before it became public but did nothing.

As it was, all the analysis was too late, as the dolphins arrived in Cancun in the early hours of 21 July, under heavy security decidedly uninterested in media coverage. The rush was because the captures were now public, Mexican law might shut down imports this fall, and, at the invitation of the Solomon Islands government, 2300 Australian and New Zealand armed peacekeepers began to arrive just a day after the dolphins left the Solomons by air.

28 dolphins were acknowledged to have arrived, 13 females and 15 males. After a cursory medical exam they were trucked to Parque Nizuc under continued security. With choreographed media coverage Parque Nizuc acted as if they were wonderful, but problems could no longer be denied when a female dolphin imported from the Solomon Islands died seven days after arriving. Even that death was denied over a day before notifying officials. Finally, after one of the original dolphins died three weeks later, PROFEPA closed the section where the Solomon Island dolphins are kept. A glance at the aerial photo shows that they are still not confined, but guess what; there is no legal definition of "confinement".

In spite of blatant illegalities, Parque Nizuc has begun a legal proceeding against PROFEPA, called an Amparo, designed to delay any solution, such as confiscation, while allowing the park to operate and profit from the dolphins. The Mexican NGO COMARINO made two "Denounces", official legal complaints, alleging several violations by Parque Nizuc for putting the imported Tursiops aduncus dolphins, an exotic species, in a marine pen in the area of the Parque Nizuc National Park, a Natural Protected Area. Seeing the light, the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums revoked Parque Nizuc's membership in the organization, and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums and Australasian Regional Association of Zoological Parks and Aquaria rejected the trade. Internal politics seems to have kept other Mexican NGOs from making their own "Denounces".

Meanwhile Mexico's President Fox may have used the furor over the dolphins to solve his political problems with the popular but opposing Green Party. He fired the heads of both PROFEPA and SEMARNAT, and many levels of lower officials were given deadlines to submit resignations. Naturally this curbed the growing official enthusiasm to actually do something to fix the dolphin problem. While many responsible Mexican authorities view the event as an international tragedy that must not happen again, for the dolphins' sake as well as the nation's, the momentum for a solution was lost.

What will happen to the dolphins at Parque Nizuc? Will the new authorities make decisions or enforce laws to prevent them from being sold at a profit, exported for some excuse (like recuperative therapy), or used in Dolphin Assisted Therapy programs? Each of the dolphins in the nine swim programs available to tourists to the Yucatán Peninsula can earn as much as $7,500 a day for the parks; no wonder it is an exploding market. Only a few of the 240 dolphins alive today in Mexican parks are used in swim programs, but even generally trained dolphins can be sold for up to $90,000 each to facilities in the Caribbean. With Cuba limited to 10 a year and the Mexican ban on capture, dolphinariums are looking elsewhere. While some of the 81 Cuban dolphins imported to Mexico cost $50,000 each, a law being debated in the Mexican Senate right now may stop imports.

In October everyone was shocked by National University tests of some of the Solomon Island dolphins that showed antibodies of morbillivirus and toxoplasmosis. Morbillivirus has been responsible for several major marine mammal mortality events, such that few Florida facilities will not accept any stranded dolphins for fear of the disease. Are other Parque Nizuc dolphins infected? Did it come from the Solomons? Is it present in Mexican waters? Has this killed all options for the dolphins?

Until this bombshell hit CSI and many others had been working on several options that are far more logical, legal and humane: the Solomon dolphins, confiscated by PROFEPA, would be quarantined to prevent the transfer of pathogens or genes, the Parque Nizuc import permits should be revoked, blood tests and photo-ID catalogues would be completed so that each of the dolphins can be assessed, chips would be implanted to allow tracing, and the dolphins should not be sold for profit, or exported for any purpose to any country, except perhaps back to the Solomons. Given the morbillivirus scare all options are on hold.

What about the dolphins in the Solomons? Given the evidence it may be logical to expect that the CITES Secretariat will recommend rejection of the existing export permits, and state for the record that the Solomon Islands is not currently in a position to issue valid export permits for Tursiops aduncus. But CITES is months overdue with that statement, and politics and bureaucracies have overwhelmed logic over and over in this issue.

The practical goal is to remove the potential for profit so the investors will try something else. Such operations cannot withstand scrutiny; the process is essentially like shining a light under a rock. Even as they wriggle away the information gathered on them will facilitate following their moves. More difficult is the goal of preventing more Solomons' dolphins from being captured for export, and the remaining dolphins being released safely, without being eaten.

Although CSI has played a significant and positive role in this ongoing issue, we have no solution to the core problem, which is us: humans can rationalize anything; people love to be entertained by dolphins, even believe they can be healed by them, and are willing to pay exorbitant prices, without any thought to what it means. Help CSI to show the eager but ignorant public what the dolphin's smile doesn't mean. CSI works in concert with many specialists worldwide, and in particular wish to acknowledge the superb work of Dr. Yolanda Alaniz of Conservación de Mamíferos Marinos de Mexico AC, Dr. Naomi Rose of the Humane Society of the United States, and Sue Fisher of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.