The following is a letter from Mr Richard O’Barry to Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) on the importation of 23 wild dolphins from the Solomon Islands by RWS for entertainment purposes at its Integrated Resort in Singapore. Mr O’Barry heads The Dolphin Project at the Earth Institute, which works to free and prevent wild dolphins from captivity.
Singaporeans and the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) are also calling on RWS to free the dolphins. (Visit ACRES Facebook page for more.)
Support the campaign “Save the World’s Saddest Dolphins”.
May 28, 2011
Mr. Tan Hee Teck, CEO
Resorts World Sentosa
Cc Ms Aw Kah Peng, CEO
Singapore Tourism Board
Dear Mr. Tan:
I am contacting you on behalf of the Dolphin Project of Earth Island Institute. Our organization is working to protect dolphins around the world and prevent dolphins from being removed from the wild for captivity.
We know that Resorts World Sentosa has dolphins now being kept in the Philippines that were captured in the waters of the Solomon Islands.
We would like to offer the possibility of setting up a rehabilitation and release project for these dolphins in conjunction with Resorts World. Your cooperation would ensure that these dolphins be returned to their natural habitat where they can thrive, as opposed to keeping them in captivity, separated from their original home range, their pod and their extensive social environment.
In helping return these dolphins, Resorts World would show the people of Singapore and the world that you are a true steward of the environment and a responsible company sensitive to the harm captivity inflicts on dolphins.
We have reached an arrangement with the villagers of the Solomon Islands for them to stop killing dolphins in exchange for funding from Earth Island to help develop alternative energy, clean water, and sustainable fishing. We believe that if the people of the Solomon Islands can end their 450-year-old hunts to help dolphins, Resorts World can too.
We know the people of Singapore love dolphins. Most Singaporeans would object to keeping dolphins in captivity if they knew the dangers to the dolphins and the horrific capture practices of the Solomon Islands and other dolphin capture countries.
Thank you for your consideration of our proposal.
Sincerely,
Richard O’Barry
Marine Mammal Specialist
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I never been to Resorts World Sentosa, and don’t know what they are setting up there for the Dolphins.
Can they set up whatever show they intend to have without including Dophins? If they can, they can make some publicity, that they are working with Mr Richard to rehabilitate the Dolphins to be released to the wild.
Heck they can even make a movie out of it, and show at Arts Festival around the world. Selling Singapore and selling RWS too. Its a sure win win deal.
Human wayang goes like this:
Get monies (build casinos)
Repent a little (give some to charity, release turtle, dolphin)
Claim success (be at peace with immortal)
This animal activists are so misguided, so extremist.
By their reasoning, they might as well ask our zoo to release all animals and close down.
Sam, your narrow minded misinformed view is quite staggering – these dolphins are wild animals captured to be put on show.
Zoo animals are either born in a zoo or transferred there to protect them. Zoos also educate people.
Two different cases. Educate yourself before criticising those trying to save animals
ACRES does not deserve our support.
As keefe said, people have different interest and passion. We being in a multicultural multireligion Singapore have to strive to live together peacefully.
However ACRES, in their misguided love for animals, have sought to impose on us their beliefs and principles. This is pure arrogance, thinking they are the only superioir ones who knows best for animals and in effect look down on the rest of us.
ACRES has also sunk to a new low – exploiting innocent children in their video to tug at our emotional strings. Using kids to wave placards with message they didn’t write or understand is downright despicable.
We and the authorities need to carefully monitor this so-called animal activists closely. We have to be vigilant against their radical passion. Otherwise like in other countries, we will be seeing animal activists firebombing animal researchers home or deliberately destroying properties of companies they deem evil.
Singapore is a small country, we can’t afford to allow this activists to grow or worst to eventually sink to the use of terrorism to advance their cause at all cost.
@amaze, don’t narrow your thinking, ask yourself where does zoo animals come from originally?
By your reasoning, keeping dolphins will also help us to understand them better and educate us.
Yes, zoo animals originated from the wild,
but dare say the intention is to protect
endangered species from wicked human captivity and slaughter, and helping to breed them to repopulate the decimated numbers, else they would disappear from our fragile earth like the Mammoth elephants.
Simple logic, you must have eggs before you could hatch chickens.
Dolphins are lovable creatures, until their numbers are threatened, should be living in the wild.
Children should be trained from young to love animals, and if they are taught to love and be kind to animals, as an adult they would treat the society they live in the same.
ACRES is not as radical or fanatic as some self rightist think, don’t see how the effort to free those RWS dolphins would lead to terrorism. These self rightist people are the ones that are radical and fanatical.
Its flawed logic to separate captive dolphins from animals in zoos. Ultimately they are all wild animals kept near people in zoo or lagoons for us to appreciate and understand them.
What ACRES has done is to pick a easy subject, in this case dolphins to politicize. Like all activists they have anthropomorphised the dolphins, to make them human, to play with our emotions.
You say train the children – I say ACRES are indoctrinating these kids with their extreme ideology.
ACRES proposal is nothing more than a ultimatum to RWC to release the dolphins, anything else is unacceptable to ACRES. This is ACRES radical and fanatical view and any sane person can see through their real agenda.
To Sam
You are so shallow. Your own argument is flaw.
Read up more about animal welfare and environmental issues before you open your big mouth.
It is people like you that makes the world a worst place to live in. You are just so full of self. So proud of the human race.
The world is for all living things, not just selfish human like yourself.
I would firstly like to comment that Sam’s reasoning is indeed the misguided and extremist one here, one that allows no room for a civil society to exist, one that is self-righteous, narrow-minded, and born of fear and ignorance. I do not say this without reason. Let us dissect his arguments thus far:
He claims that animal activists are “misguided and extremist”, who “might as well ask our zoo to release all animals and close down”. Unfortunately for him, ACRES is making this bid to free the dolphins based on solid fact and not blind passion. Nothing else could have driven them to write a full report (http://www.saddestdolphins.com/report/Acres%20-Resorts%20World's%20Dolphins%20Report.pdf) against keeping wide-ranging wild animals in captivity. Mind you, the term is “wide-ranging”, referring to how dolphins, among other animals, require unlimited space (i.e. the ocean) to roam, if they are to live well. This is the main reason why the dolphins should be released. They are simply not suited to living life in a tank.
The term “wild” also refers to animals which know how to fend for themselves in their natural habitat. This brings us to Sam’s point on how since ACRES is extremist based on his misunderstood perception of its reasoning, zoo animals should also be released. He claims that it is ” flawed logic to separate captive dolphins from animals in zoos. Ultimately they are all wild animals kept near people in zoo or lagoons for us to appreciate and understand them”. Sadly, Sam, this is an imagined flaw in logic. Zoo animals are not wild animals. Left on their own in the wild, they are less likely to survive without proper rehabilitation because of their dependence on humans, having lived all their lives in captivity. They have also been bred in captivity because some of them are endangered and need to be protected from extinction. Given such, it is appropriate for zoo animals to remain in captivity for their welfare. This in turn, leads us to how wild animals do not require our protection, much less, our interference in their lives. Hence, the dolphins ought to be freed.
Another point that he mentioned is that keeping the dolphins is an advantage that allows us to understand animals better. It is not anthropomorphising to state that this is an extremely selfish point of view, to seek human advancement at the expense of the animals’ suffering. It is a long-documented fact that animals, especially dolphins, have the propensity for emotion. According to the book “In defense of dolphins: the new moral frontier” by Thomas I. White, the dolphin brain has “a limbic system, the part of the brain which generates emotions”. Dolphins can express grief, feel fear and be overwhelmed with stress. In other words, the amount of suffering these dolphins will undergo, in the process of being deprived of their natural environment, transported so many times, and being confined to a small area against their needs, is undeniable. These are facts you cannot argue against unless you have done research yourself and can prove otherwise. Prioritising your own selfish desire to simply gain knowledge over the dolphin’s welfare is telling of the kind of person you are, Sam.
Sam also claims that ACRES is seeking to impose their beliefs on the rest of Singapore. There are 2 things we have issues with here: firstly, does this make every other advocacy organisation arrogant congregations of people with severe superiority complexes like Sam imagines ACRES to be? Does this make Human Rights Watch or UNICEF self-righteous organisations every time they campaign for the rights of child slaves in Africa or the abuse of women? No, like ACRES, these organisations are seeking to right a wrong they perceive in the community. It’s simply a pity, then, you do not view the holding of wild dolphins under stressful duress and captivity as wrong.
Furthermore, claiming that ACRES is exploiting children to convey its message is plain childish. Any child, with their innocence and pure conscience, can tell you that it is wrong to hold a wild animal in captivity. These children could not have participated in the project without agreeing with ACRES and also, without their parents’ consent. Would any parent allow their child to blindly participate in a so-called radical organisation’s advocacy efforts, and allow their children to be brainwashed? Obviously not, because in the first place, these children are not blind (and perhaps far more sensitive to suffering than most adults), and secondly, these parents rationally know that ACRES is not radical and their children are not being brainwashed.
Sam also delusionally confuses animal activists with extremists. Please do not confuse the term “activist” with “terrorist” or “extremist” so easily, Sam. Did you know our grassroots leaders are also termed “grassroots activists” in our national paper, The Straits Times? Does this make each GRC/SMC in grave danger of neighbourhood grassroots “terrorists”? You are right to be concerned that animal activists do not get out of hand. However, in what way is ACRES being extreme? As it gone to the extent which you wrote of, and actively harmed anyone to achieve its goal? No, as far as rational human beings which we all are can see, all that has taken place thus far is a peaceful media campaign; a written, well-substantiated report, and a credible letter written (not by a terrorist, mind you, but a marine mammal specialist) to stakeholders accountable for the dolphins. This is no indicator that the next thing ACRES will do is to bomb the RWS. The problem is your argument is nothing more than a slippery slope, a highly extreme perception that one circumstance necessarily leads to another. It does not. And with rational monitoring by the authorities, we have absolutely nothing to fear.
I also take issue with saying that we “can’t afford to allow this activists to grow”. Any organisation, Sam, whether it’s Renci Hospital or SPCA, being non-profit, is motivated by a strong passion for their respective causes. Based on your flawed logic, Sam, then any organisation has a propensity for violence, extremism and terrorism because they are guided by “radical passion”, and will “eventually sink to the use of terrorism to advance their cause at all cost”. Because according to you, then any charitable organisation is dangerous and should be not be encouraged to grow and advocate for their causes. Please be rational. The government won’t allow such situations to arise. And in the first place, they wouldn’t even allow such organisations to exist if they were deemed to be too extreme. ACRES is a registered charity. It has the government’s support because it is credible and rational.
Also, what is there to politicise about this whole issue? What ulterior motive do you think ACRES has other than the welfare of the wild dolphins? I resent that you claim that “like all activists they have anthropomorphised the dolphins” to “play with our emotions”. No doubt you have PETA in mind. As an animal welfare activist myself, I do not agree with PETA’s tactics sometimes. But while ACRES is not PETA, both organisations would never create campaigns based on thin air. They are supported by hard, undeniable facts – that animals have emotions, undergo stress, and should not be held in captivity where it is unnecessary. If you feel your emotions have been played by facts, then too bad for you. Most logical people use their brains to assess the facts before arriving at a stand, and this case, they would assess ACRES’s evidence before deciding to support the cause, and not simply because they were moved by the video or their emotions were “played” by solid evidence.
Finally, what alternative do you have to offer other than the Big Scary Ultimatum that ACRES has proposed? Sam, do you have a smarter plan for the welfare of the dolphins? Because if you do, then please raise it, rather than mindlessly attacking ACRES here. Reading your comments has personally been a rather disturbing experience for me, because your accusations directed at ACRES seem more like descriptions of your own viewpoint: “radical” and “fanatical”. We are dying to know what ACRES’s real agenda is. To take over the world? Come on. To state that ACRES’s proposal is an “ultimatum” is ridiculous, because firstly, it is not going to harm anyone. (Any poor IR visitors out there planning to sink into depression upon being deprived of their dolphin spa experience?) Secondly, an “ultimatum” means the rejection of ACRES’s proposal will result in retaliation. Use your brain and think – will the logical, cool-headed people who have created this campaign and sent this letter so far launch an attack against RWS and the government? As I have said before, it’s precisely because ACRES is credible and rational that the government has the assurance to register this charity in the first place.
I commented because of all the misconceptions and flawed logic fraught with Sam’s arguments against the cause. Hopefully, this clarifies ACRES’s purpose and helps more people understand this project, while at the same time, take Sam’s comments with a pinch of salt.
Having such diverse views about animal activism or anything else is what lead to peaceful demonstrations & debates. It allows us to grow intellectually & educates folks with opinions on both different sides of the spectrum. Not to mention having a voice to proudly stand up for what we believe in. Personally, I believe in animal rights, the dolphins should not be in captivity. Peaceful demonstrations outside RWS, anyone? Oh wait, I forgot. I’d probably be arrested for that “crime”. zzz.
as I have said before, the dolpins matter should be discussed at other forum, not here…
If Sentosa is really building the world biggest oceanarium with world professionals and ensuring their best well-beings, I think I can accept that the dolphins might be happier there compared to being in the wild. Who makes assumption that living in the wild has no stress for these animals?
Furthermore, unless they can get all the major clubs like Australia Sea World, Hong Kong Ocean Park to release their dolphins, I do not see why we ought to….
I think ACRES should make available a private screening of The Cove to these locals who have no idea what is happening to these dolphins. Maybe charge them a discounted ticket price of $6 to pay for the cinema rent.
Or even ask the producer of The Cove if can release on free TV in Singapore. Then let people know. Some say ignorance is bliss. But ignorance + arrogance = disastrous.
We have reached an arrangement with the villagers of the Solomon Islands for them to stop killing dolphins in exchange for funding from Earth Island to help develop alternative energy, clean water, and sustainable fishing.
We know the people of Singapore love dolphins. Most Singaporeans would object to keeping dolphins in captivity if they knew the dangers to the dolphins and the horrific capture practices of the Solomon Islands and other dolphin capture countries – Mr Richard O’Barry
Mr. Richard O’Barry What alarms me is villagers of Solomon Island used to kill these dolphins. Are you able to track/assure us that all the RWS dolphins returned to their habitat will not be killed again? You also need to prove to us that RWS did indeed ill-treat these creatures. Singaporeans adored these dolphins and would be the first to take the cudgel if any of them are subjected to cruelty whether physical or mental. As for the ‘captivity’ and ‘cruelty’ concerns, nothing is more cruel than to know they will be slaughtered in their natural habitat by unscrupulous mankind.
To Sam,
Do you work for RWS? How much they pay you to post here?
Your postings here are absolute rubbish and small-minded…
FYI…all animals in a zoo are actually taken from other zoo’s…nowadays nobody gets animals from wild anymore unless there is a special reason like endangered species or poaching…
I would just like to say props to Activist for a thorough and well-considered response to Sam, on the rationale, aims and purposes of activism.
Not everything can be political – as in party politics – because animal welfare isn’t really a vote-getter. But that’s where civil society comes in to fill the gap.
Rick O’Barry
Why don’t you and your acres do something about this one http://www.hoax-slayer.com/denmark-whaling.shtml
Why target only the East??
For unknowing Singaporeans’ info:
Solomon Islands dolphin exporter confirms order from Germany
Radio New Zealand International 16 Feb 11;
A Solomon Islands exporter of live dolphins has confirmed that he plans
to fill an order from Germany, along with orders from other European countries and Dubai.
Robert Satu, the director of the Marine Mammal Educational Centre, can’t confirm the exact number of dolphins each country’s ordered but hopes to begin hunting at the end of June.
Mr Satu says the other European countries don’t want their identity publicised.
Here’s a good way to show your support of Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project. I got mine.
http://www.efxusa.com/product/charity-cause-wristbands/SISBROBDP.html?Product_Attributes1:value=black&Product_Attributes2:value=white
Unlike ACRES, I think the issues around the dolphins are still open to debate.
What’s alarming is ACRES recent actions, its escalating campaign. It appears to have abandon civility, ethics and lawfulness in their quest to free the dolphins.
ACRES deliberately trespassed into the Philippines marine facility to spy on the dolphin, they know what they did was wrong when they revealed “The main obstacle was getting caught doing it undercover”. This is clearly illegal in any country.
ACRES use of children in their campaign video is not only unethical but a cowardly way to hide behind these minors. Making kids wave placards with highly offensive, defamatory words; using words like “slavery” to depict RWS as slave-traders; this is madness – has ACRES lost its mind or does it think it is safe from any legal actions because the kids are holding the placards?
Hopefully its not too late for their supporters to realize the potential trouble they are exposing themselves to by associating and allowing ACRES to play this emotional game.
Of Dolphins and Decency:
When you consider that dolphins and other whales have been around on this planet for at least 50 million years, compared with much less than a single million years for us human beings, you have to wonder how we got control so quickly over them. They have larger brains than we have. They’re bigger and stronger, faster, sleeker and altogether more perfectly formed than we are. And yet, just as we have come to dominate 30 per cent of the world (that which is above water) in the short time we’ve been around, we could say that dolphins and other whales are the dominate species in the other 70 percent, which is water.
The bottom line is that we’re both at the top in our separate worlds, cetaceans in their watery domain, we on land. When we scan the horizon for similarities, we have a moment of recognition because we’re actually very much alike. We’re both mammals, for instance, mammals of a high order for we’re both self-aware, and we’ve both adapted almost perfectly to the world we live in. As mammals we both breathe air, mothers in both worlds suckle their young in loving family groups around which is woven a way of living that fosters social rules maintaining a balance like the golden mean of ancient Greece.
At least that’s true of dolphins and other whales.
Where did we go wrong? What happened in our world to make so many of us rush with such abandon into the exploitation of our counterparts in the other 70 percent of the world? Why do we capture these beautiful fellow creatures and make them objects of fun? And oddly enough the most fun we seem to have is capturing them, pinning them up and making them pull us through the water, one after the other,. Why would anyone who understood what was actually going on enjoy this? How can we, who do understand what’s going on, tolerate it? And how can those who exploit dolphins and other whales do so without a ripple of conscience, as if they had a right to?
Well, as we all know, the short answer is that we have a history of this. You may recall that slavery was only recently put aside as an okay thing to do. Almost certainly that happened because it was no longer economically feasible. Indeed where it is feasible, as in enforced prostitution of children and things like that, it still goes on like crazy. Maybe at the heart of all this is our sophisticated world-wide economic system whose goal is to maximize profits regardless of collateral damage. But the history of slavery in general is a clue to how we can stop this travesty. If we stop it from being profitable, it will go away.
The first so-called dolphinarium began in 1938 at Marine Studios in St. Augustine, Florida, USA. Now there are scores of dolphinaria all over the world, and more all the time are being established. If you could collect all the abuse to dolphins and other whales, the pain, the horror, frustration, the dolphin suicides, the cries for help—if you were to gather all these atrocities from over the years it would be like a thousand hells.
Most countries would not permit this abuse for the real reason they exist: money. Most countries have laws against cruelty to animals, laws that began early in the 19th Century. But obviously these laws have a loophole because, despite all our efforts, displaying dolphins publicly for money is now a multi-billion dollar industry. Hunters of dolphins, suppliers and shippers, marketers, park construction workers, trainers—this list goes on and on and they all cash in. Some nations allow it because they’ve got bigger problems. Some nations see nothing wrong with it. The rest allow it for the wrong reason: that it’s educational. They say that many people would never get to see a dolphin except for the dolphinaria. But what about all the people who will never see a snow leopard? saber-toothed tiger? Or the do-do bird? On and on. Taken even at face value, their argument is a fraud, because these dolphinaria are not educational, they’re anti-educational. They show not a dolphin in his own world but a trained dolphin, a dolphin trained to act like a clown, in our world.
And then they have the unmitigated gall, the chutzpah, to tell us, “Look! See how they smile? They love doing tricks for us!”
Don’t be fooled. Those dolphins are not smiling. If one of those dolphins were to fall dead on the dock, he would still wear that look and it would still not be a smile.
It may be tempting to point out that we are not personally to blame for what is happening to dolphins and other whales. And that’s true. We don’t personally capture them and put them in what to them are tiny torture chambers, and we don’t withhold food till they perform silly little acrobatic tricks to our liking. We’re not to blame, not a single one of us, in the same way we’re not to blame for the world’s murders, arsons, kidnappings and so on. We’re not to blame because (1) we don’t personally do these things and (2) we’ve helped pass laws against them, laws with good stiff penalties that express our desire to make the world free from such abuse. We pass laws against murder, kidnapping and all the rest not because of some abstraction about society or the rule of law, but because we’re sick of it. We’ve had enough. Just like now we’re revolted by those who capture dolphins in the wild and imprison them for the rest of their lives.
They capture dolphins in the wild but claim to replace them by letting them breed in captivity. This too is a fraud. Dolphins born in captivity never learn to catch a live fish in the wild and are unequipped to live there.
A lot of misguided talk surrounds another similarity between human beings and dolphins in captivity: their committing suicide when stressed. When dolphins in captivity are greatly stressed, they sometimes obviously feel the need to escape by whatever means. This is a big problem because they don’t have guns or poison as we do in such circumstances. What can they do? Some of these dolphins batter themselves to death against the walls of their prison. Others refuse to eat until they waste away and die. Dolphins and other whales are not like any other mammal in the way they breathe. While humans and all the other mammals breathe automatically, dolphins don’t have that automatic reflex; every breath they take is deliberate. When human beings fall into deep water, we drown because we lose consciousness and then, when the automatic reflex kicks in, we breathe water. Not so the dolphin. The dolphin will kill himself by drowning if he deliberately breathes water, but, more likely, he dies for lack of oxygen in his blood caused by not breathing at all. This suicide option the dolphin takes is another proof of his self-awareness, without which suicide would never even occur to him
If words alone, if logic, reason, facts and history were enough to destroy the dolphin industry that has warped our lives, they would be long gone now. We need more than words, we need laws to stop them. We know that it cannot be done overnight. It may take many years. We may even have to compromise a little. But now is the time to start eliminating this evil or it will never happen in our lifetime.
Well said, Richard!
I am outraged by Resorts World Sentosa’s capture of wild dolphins and their unrepentant press releases to justify their profit-seeking actions. Presently, the Underwater World has several captive Indopacific Humpback dolphins which visitors can view and interact with. 25 more dolphins in RWS are completely unnecessary. A species does not need to be endangered before it merits conservation. The value of a healthy wild dolphin population cannot be reduced to dollars and cents, but since dollars and cents seem to be what RWS understands, I urge tourists and citizens of Singapore to boycott RWS until the dolphins are released. Please demonstrate to RWS that capturing dolphins from the wild is completely unacceptable.
I reiterate that I don’t support ‘animals captivity for profits’ or any form of cruelty to them whether physical/mental. I furnish below information with the hope we understand what we are doing in the best interest of the dolphins-
Bottlenose dolphins under human care have a better chance of being healthy and studies indicate that they live as long or longer as animals in the wild. Any statement to the contrary is a misstatement of published data. The truth is that dolphins do very well when they are in the care of modern aquariums. They breed successfully, form complex social groups and exhibit excellent mental and physical health. Dolphins under human care consume high-quality nutritional food, receive medical attention whenever needed and are kept free of debilitating parasites. This is in stark contrast to the predators, disease, pollution, well-documented commercial fishing and recreational dangers, and other stress they face at sea, resulting in thousands of deaths each year. Releasing an animal into the wild is a carefully made decision of which few marine mammals would make good candidates and even less would survive. The decision to release any marine mammal into the wild is based on three important factors; the animal’s health, the animal’s ability to survive, and the impact the animal will have on the wild population. Each decision must provide for the protection of both the released dolphin and for the ecological stability of the habitat selected for release.Marine Mammal experts believe that regardless of the level of preparation, less than one third of dolphins released survive the first year, and that for some programs, less than 1% survive at all.
Activist claims that Sam “delusionally confuses animal activists with extremists.” This is clearly abusive. Activists comes in many shades. Some are mild while others are militant. Sam’s fear that this movement may turn aggressive is entirely rational. Even if the government has registered ACRES that does not mean that they have prophetic vision and can see that ACRES will never become militant. Activist says that cool-headed people have created this campaign but his own expressions are very emotional. “To take over the world? To bomb the RWS.” They do not have to do this to be extreme. AWARE is a good case to compare. It is a registered charity. Who would expect it to cause such a blistering controversy that the police and even the ISD had to be called in? AWARE was led by a group of activists who sincerely believed that they were working to right a wrong. Problems arose when another group with opposing views felt threatened. In the subsequent battles, the secular group was clearly seen to be far more emotional and passionate than the religious group. Therefore it is a mistake to think that ACRES will be cool-headed and rational just because it is a secular, not religious, group. Secular groups must not impose their views on others any more than religious groups. Activists can be so convinced of the rightness of their cause that pychologically they are no different from religious fundamentalists. To use the new media to whip up social sentiments against the RWS is a form of attack even if it is non-violent. The PAP has just experienced its devastating force. Activist’s absolute certainty that he is right can be seen from his claim that the campaign is “based on solid fact and not blind passion.” Even if the facts are solid, the passion may still be blind or at least unbalanced or even extreme as Sam suggested. Tobacco causes cancer. Solid fact. Millions die annually. Solid fact. But where is the passion? The most damning thing about this campaign is that it is about the 23 dolphins which will be displayed in the RWS where the casino is. Where is the passion for the countless human beings including their children who are being harmed by it? Human lives and families are being destroyed to earn profit. This is not disgraceful. Using dolphins to earn profit is disgraceful. Is this passion balanced or extreme? This is not about facts but about ideology and moral values.
Is there solid evidence that these 23 dolphins will not be well treated when they are transported to RWS Singapore. I would have thought that if RWS sees these dolphins as a star attraction for their shows, they would take good care of them.
Is it not unlike a circus, where there are so many performing animals. These are well looked after, right.
where will these 23 dolphins go to if not bought by RWS? another casino joint? 23 is not a small amount.. that’s the whole pod. :(
The problem here is about their current condition and welfare. Dolphins have already died while being held in captivity for RWS and they are catching others to replace the dead.
I believe Sam have a different agenda and his concern is not target to the dolphins he is definitely trying to defame Acres if he thinks that there is something so wrong about acres he should stand up to his cause and not post such negative and unsound findings in the forum. Sam i hope you will work towards your cause if you think it is much more suitable for our young to be educated if not you should stop defaming without concrete proof.
To Sam,
would you like to be kept in captivity ?. surely not! Not to be allowed to be mentally, physically free is a death sentence for humans and animals alike. Emphathy is not in your vocabulary . i can see that.
Why not spend more time to prevent killings of dolphins/whales ? I rather animals are kept in cages than them being hurt. Keeping them is not cruel as letting them killed in the wild..
RWS should not be profited for the using of dolphin for performance although i dont mind them keeping the dolphins.
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Keeping dolphins is unlike keeping pets like dogs and cats whereby you can prevent them from being abused/hurt. Like zoo animals which do not like to be confined, all animals have a right to live freely in the wild unless circumstances prevent them from doing so e.g. when animals need human interference to help them recuperate from serious injuries/illness and would be returned to the wild after they have recovered.
Put yourself in the shoes of the dolphins – would you rather be confined and suffer a slow death even though food and ‘shelter’ are provided or would you rather be free roaming in the wild as you are born to be with unlimited food and vast space to roam?
@Bronze Chua
If you really care about the welfare of wild dolphins, you would not post such comments. Another hidden agenda behind this post.
dolphins to not be kept in captivity
Yeah what Mysterious said