3 June 2012
Is the hugely popular Manila Ocean Park (MOP) planning to import for display Beluga whales, listed in international registries as "near-threatened"?
A private organization, Save Philippine Seas (SPS), has written MOP management to ask them to confirm the information it received; and if true, to reconsider that move, considering findings that the Beluga whales’ life span is greatly reduced in captivity because of stressful conditions.
In a letter to Armi Cortes, vice president for marketing of MOP, the SPS’s co-founder Ana Oposa said their group had received the information from a former MOP employee whose identity was being withheld. The source supposedly revealed plans to import dolphins and beluga whales for an open-display attraction from 2013-2015. Said SOS.
The same source informed SOS that earlier, the ocean park caught six tiger sharks for display, but four of these died as they could not adapt to conditions in the MOP aquariums.
“Beluga whales inhabit cold Arctic waters and live in family pods. Their current status in the International Union for Conservation of Nature is already near threatened,” said SOS’ letter to Ms. Cortes.
Besides stressful conditions in captivity, the Beluga whales’ lives could be cut short further by the “tropical and highly polluted environment” in Manila, said SPS. It cited a Department of Health statement that “breathing Metro Manila air is risky.”
The private group surmised that if the plan pushes through, MOP will make sure “to provide the Beluga whales with their own special tanks with marine chillers and a well-researched diet. But if the four tiger sharks really did die, then it appears that MOP does not have a good track record and the appropriate marine facilities to keep large marine animals alive.”
Finally, Oposa stressed their group shares MOP’s avowed mission to educate the public, especially the young, about the virtue of caring for marine life, and acknowledged she learned to love the sea and sea animals from frequenting oceanariums when she was young. to Still, she added, “keeping Beluga whales in such disturbing conditions” would contradict the very mission of MOP.
