GROUPS AGAINST WHALE SHARK IMPORT

By Zakaria Abdul Wahab

SINGAPORE, March 12 (Bernama) -- 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 on Wednesday 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 which 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."
-- BERNAMA