Groups Against Whale Shark Import

March 11, 2009

Release from: Zakaria Abdul Wahab
Malaysian National News Agency

SINGAPORE - Several local and international animal rights and conservation groups have launched an online campaign to prevent an upcoming Singapore resort centre from importing whale sharks for its marine life park.

The groups yesterday launched website www.whalesharkpetition.com for the public to voice their concerns over the resort's plan to import the threatened species of shark for its marine life park on Sentosa Island.

Resorts World at Sentosa (RWS), a casino-cum-theme park that is still under construction, will boast the world's biggest oceanarium with 700,000 fishes, including dolphins and whale sharks when it is completed next year.

RWS says on its website that the acquisition of animals for its marine park will be done in full compliance with international standards, such as the one set by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The international groups that are against RWS's move are Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the local ones, The Green Volunteers, lovesharks.sg, Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES), Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Cicada Tree Eco-Place.

In a statement here, the groups said although the local authorities would ensure that wild animals kept in captivity followed strict international standards of animal husbandry, there was "no man-made environment, no matter how large, to accommodate the needs of a whale shark."

They said whale sharks could dive up to 980 metres and migrate over 13,000km, and evidence had shown that they fared poorly in captivity, citing two cases of whale sharks, which died within five months of each other at the state-of-the-art Georgia aquarium in the United States.

The organisations said, as whale sharks were a species vulnerable to extinction, efforts must be made to protect the remaining wild population and that there was no merit to remove them from the wild breeding population, especially with such poor captive survival rates.

The groups urged the Singapore Government to take the lead in Southeast Asian ecotourism by "creating a uniquely Singaporean Marine Life Park that would promote native flora and fauna, instead of putting vulnerable species in harm's way."