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The highly-anticipated final attraction of Resorts World Sentosa (RWS), the Marine Life Park (MLP), opens its doors on Friday but not without a dark cloud hanging over the sprawling attraction.

Much of the headlines in recent weeks has been surrounding the condition of the 24 bottlenose dolphins now under its care.

Three died before even arriving in Singapore – two during their initial confinement period in Langkawi, Malaysia, and one just last month on its plane flight into Singapore.

Now animal welfare group ACRES has urged a boycott of the MLP and related properties under the Genting family as a final resort until the dolphins are released from captivity.

“You can see that the swimming pools are not only small but also filthy,” said Louis Ng, founder of ACRES, after a visit to the dolphin enclosure at MLP.

Labelling the conditions the dolphins live in as “appalling”, he said even humans may shy away from taking a dip in the pool.
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In a final push to get them released, ACRES said its final ultimatum would be to launch a full-fledged boycott against all Genting properties unless RWS works with ACRES to rehabilitate and release the dolphins.

Will the public support a mass boycott, though?

Dolphins at Resorts World Sentosa: To boycott or not? Yahoo!

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UPDATED (23 November 2012 9:15am. Corrects time of dolphin’s death)

A bottlenose dolphin bound for Resorts World Sentosa‘s (RWS) Marine Life Park (MLP) died before arriving in Singapore on Thursday.

Wen Wen, a male dolphin estimated to be ten years old, died suddenly less than an hour before his flight landed in Singapore from the Philippines where it had been kept in captivity for training purposes for four years.

Two marine mammal veterinarians and eight marine mammal specialists were accompanying Wen Wen, who was among  the 11 dolphins on the flight. They responded with emergency medical treatment, said the Park in a statement.

No medical results or behavioural observations indicated that Wen Wen was in a compromised condition to make the journey.

Wen Wen was a sociable dolphin that survived a shark attack in the wild and had the scars of a shark bite on his torso. (Photo courtesy of Marine Life Park)

RWS dolphin dies before arrival in S’pore

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FMT video

Free Malaysia Today

Dolphins of Pulau Ketam

A special FMT video feature on Pulau Ketam.

Things are so different in Pulau Ketam today. This island, well known as a fishing haven and for its mangrove forest, is slowing losing all of its allure – all thanks to the rampant development and environment damage done by man.

In an FMT video special, a second generation settler of Pulau Ketam, 58-year-old Ah Kang, remembers the good-ol-days of Pulau Ketam.

He spoke to our video journalist Arvind Raj on issues of ongoing mangrove deforestation, alleged corruption that destroys the environment and other health related problems.

He also remembers the days when dolphin sightings at Pulau Ketam were a common feature, and the impact on the island due to global climatic change.

“From outside this island looks beautiful but when you go deep into the island, you can see that everything (mangrove forest) is gone.

“We use to see ikan lumba-lumba (dolphins) regularly here but now such sightings have become rare…it’s because these dolphins can no longer find their food here.

“We also use to have many crocodiles here, but now they are all gone….all captured by people…,” he lamented.

Watch the FMT special video here.

Dolphins of Pulau Ketam

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Dolphins are marine mammals closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, eating mostly fish and squid. Dolphins are among the most intelligent animals, and their often friendly appearance, an artifact of the “smile” of their mouthline, and seemingly playful attitude have made them very popular in human culture.

Dolphin, Wikipedia

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Resorts World Sentosa is an integrated resort on the island of Sentosa, off the southern coast of Singapore. The key attractions include one of Singapore’s two casinos, a Universal Studios theme park and Marine Life Park, which includes the world’s largest oceanarium.

Wikipedia

Marine Life park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marine Life Park (Chinese: 海洋生物园) will be an oceanarium located in Resorts World Sentosa, Sentosa Island, Singapore. It is set to debut as the largest oceanarium in the world when it opens in 2012.The 8-hectare (20-acre) park will feature exhibits containing a total of 20,000,000 imperial gallons (91,000,000 l) of water, for 700,000 aquatic residents. The park’s largest lagoon contains 6,600,000 imperial gallons (30,000,000 l) of water. The park houses two attractions, the S.E.A Aquarium and the Adventure Cove Waterpark.

The resort originally planned to include whale sharks, but conceded that it might not be feasible to house them and has dropped the plan. There is ongoing controversy over captures of wild dolphins from Solomon Islands and the facilities in which they are kept in Subic Bay, Philippines, some of which have reportedly died. A petition for Resorts World Singapore to release 25 dolphins held in captivity exceeded the 100,000 mark in August 2011.

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Dolphins are a big draw card, and it will not be easy for Resorts World Sentosa to give up their 25 dolphins which are clearly an integral part of their tourist attraction.

We were at Sentosa recently, and visited The Dolphin Lagoon. Long before show time, the benches were almost all taken.

No, it won’t be easy to given up all those wonderful dolphins…

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Animal activists in Singapore are calling on the public to pile pressure on Resorts World Sentosa to set free 25 dolphins now bound for the city-state after a legal order preventing the mammals’ shipment expired.

Permits for the dolphins, currently being held in the Philippines, were granted on Thursday after a judge there overturned an initial decision to halt the export of the animals, said Louis Ng, the head of Singapore-based Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES).

Following a petition that has so far garnered some 680,000 signatures of support from members of the public, Ng said ACRES wants to take this one step further — to add a personal touch to the plea by sending emails directly to RWS chief executive officer Tan Hee Teck from its website.

“Ultimately, Resorts World Sentosa relies on public support and public dollars in order to carry on its business, and we feel that if the public starts to speak up on this issue and take direct action, Resorts World will eventually realise that this is not something that is profitable,” Ng said in a press briefing on Friday.
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“The key thing is that this (scrapping plans for its second dolphin enclosure) is a decision that Resorts World has to make,” said Ng. “The reality at this point is that there is a contract (standing between the government and RWS). The government cannot ask Resorts World to take dolphins off the list; it has to be the other way round.”

ACRES calls for public pressure on RWS dolphin enclosure

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A court has blocked the export of 25 captive dolphins trained in the Philippines to become show animals at a Singapore casino, a Filipino official and animal rights groups said Saturday.

A civil suit filed by the rights groups alleged the traffic in live Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins for sport or entertainment was illegal, cruel and would cause the extinction of the species.

The large marine mammals were shipped to a marine park in the northern Philippines between 2008 and 2011, said Anna Cabrera, head of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society.

“The dolphins, caught in the wild from the Solomon Islands, were forcibly snatched from their families and will live short, miserable lives in captivity as show animals for Resorts World in Singapore,” Cabrera said in a statement.

Article: Philippine court halts dolphin export to Singapore

AFP News – Sat, Oct 13, 2012

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Dolphins of Resorts World Sentosa are being trained in the Philippines. (Photo courtesy of Acres)

By Daphne Seah

Dolphin trainer turned anti-captivity activist Richard O’ Barry asserted on Tuesday that it is “not too late” for hotel-casino operator Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) to release 25 wild-caught Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins.

RWS, which plans to exhibit the dolphins in its eight hectare Marine Life Park (MLP), has become the target of Animal Concerns Research and Education Society‘s (Acre’s) campaign to free the mammals from captivity, and O’Barry is taking part in the latter’s initiative.

In a public dialogue session organised by Acres on Tuesday evening, O’Barry, who also belongs to Earth Island Institute and stars in the Oscar Award-winning documentary “The Cove“, shared that he has successfully freed dolphins in Georgia, Guatemala and Russia.

Not too late for RWS to release dolphins’

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