PHUKET: The final touches were being put to Patong's new we-love-dolphins display today as the island debated whether it also needs a ''cruel and heartless'' dolphinarium.
How odd that Patong, where dolphins have seldom been sighted this century, celebrates these magnificent creatures in the wild with a water feature while entrepreneurs plan to use captive creatures elsewhere on the island for private profit.
Unfortunately the world doesn't make progress on animal rights issues simultaneously so what's happening on Phuket mixes opinions from across the spectrum.
We understand that if environmentalists confirm that some of the dolphins being brought to Phuket have been captured in the wild, the campaign to have their importation stopped will intensify.
It's likely at some stage that airlines will be targetted and told that their brands will be boycotted if they import wild dolphins for use in a dolphin show.
Patong's love affair with the dolphin has given it Loma Park.
Sadly, the alternative to a dolphinarium of trips by boat to see dolphins in the wild appears to be out of the question because little has ever been done to encourage wild dolphins to return to Patong Bay.
It's sad to think that a coastal destination where dolphins once thrived and were admired so much that locals named a park after them now has to import the creatures to a contrived on-land show so people can understand their beauty and intelligence.
And of course, the people who go to the dolphin shows will be visitors from places where the treatment of beautiful, intelligent animals has yet to become a big issue.
Our interest in going to see animals perform ended when we learned of the cruelty involved in circuses. Circuses with animals are no longer popular.
Zoos were created because once, most people could never hope to see lions and gazelles and other exotic creatures any other way.
Today television means everybody everywhere has a reasonably complete understanding of how animals live in their wild environments.
Unless there's a breeding program to restore the particular creatures' numbers so their species is no longer under threat, the existence of zoos and animal shows these days hardly seems to have a rational explanation.
Mankind has a cruel history of taming, killing, enslaving and eating virtually every other living creature. The less we have to maintain that record in the future, the better.
How odd that Patong, where dolphins have seldom been sighted this century, celebrates these magnificent creatures in the wild with a water feature while entrepreneurs plan to use captive creatures elsewhere on the island for private profit.
Unfortunately the world doesn't make progress on animal rights issues simultaneously so what's happening on Phuket mixes opinions from across the spectrum.
We understand that if environmentalists confirm that some of the dolphins being brought to Phuket have been captured in the wild, the campaign to have their importation stopped will intensify.
It's likely at some stage that airlines will be targetted and told that their brands will be boycotted if they import wild dolphins for use in a dolphin show.
Patong's love affair with the dolphin has given it Loma Park.
Sadly, the alternative to a dolphinarium of trips by boat to see dolphins in the wild appears to be out of the question because little has ever been done to encourage wild dolphins to return to Patong Bay.
It's sad to think that a coastal destination where dolphins once thrived and were admired so much that locals named a park after them now has to import the creatures to a contrived on-land show so people can understand their beauty and intelligence.
And of course, the people who go to the dolphin shows will be visitors from places where the treatment of beautiful, intelligent animals has yet to become a big issue.
Our interest in going to see animals perform ended when we learned of the cruelty involved in circuses. Circuses with animals are no longer popular.
Zoos were created because once, most people could never hope to see lions and gazelles and other exotic creatures any other way.
Today television means everybody everywhere has a reasonably complete understanding of how animals live in their wild environments.
Unless there's a breeding program to restore the particular creatures' numbers so their species is no longer under threat, the existence of zoos and animal shows these days hardly seems to have a rational explanation.
Mankind has a cruel history of taming, killing, enslaving and eating virtually every other living creature. The less we have to maintain that record in the future, the better.
Does Phuket need a Dolphinarium?
Hell no!
Posted by Hopelander on July 27, 2014 15:10