Making Waves Over Whale Shark

February 6, 2009

Release from: Vesela Todorova
The National (Abu Dhabi)

Conservationists have renewed their demand for the release of a whale shark that has been kept at an aquarium in Atlantis, The Palm for more than four months.

Activists last year questioned the rationale for catching the shark, which the hotel said was sick and confused. Atlantis characterised the capture as a rescue.

Atlantis since has remained silent. The controversy subsided by the end of November, after the opening of the opulent hotel, the joint venture of Kerzner International and developer Nakheel.

Yesterday, a group of environmentalists tried to remind the public about the creature’s welfare by releasing an open letter to “the management and decision-makers” of the hotel.

They wrote that Atlantis confirmed during a radio interview in September that it “would release the whale shark in due course. We now urge the Atlantis Hotel to act upon its promise”.

The document is signed by Susan Lieberman, director of the global species programme of the World Wide Fund for Nature; Azzedine Downes, vice president of the International Fund for Animal Welfare; Habiba al Marashi, chairman of the Emirates Environmental Group; and Razan al Mubarak, managing director of the Emirates Wildlife Society.

The environmentalists claim the animal’s stay in the Ambassador Lagoon, an 11-million-litre fish tank, has little value other than attracting visitors to the hotel.

“Keeping the whale shark at a hotel, which is not an educational or scientific institution, does not increase the potential for conservation of the wild population,” the letter said.

“Whale sharks are animals that migrate extremely large distances each year, and this type of distance is simply not possible in an aquarium, no matter how large the facility may be. This highly migratory nature combined with its low abundance make it particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

“Furthermore, the fact that the captive whale shark is a juvenile female increases the detriment to the wild population.

“Taking a potential breeder and thus offspring producer from the wild takes not only one whale shark from an already weakened whale shark population, but also the possible offspring she could produce if in her natural environment.”

Whale sharks, which are the world’s largest fish, are listed as vulnerable to extinction in the Red List of Threatened Species, a publication of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Atlantis did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.