CAIRO: A video posted to Youtube.com pans over rooftops before centering on a villa in Egypt's Red Sea coastal town of Hurghada. As the camera zooms in, a small swimming pool comes into focus. What is shocking, and frustrating, to many activists in Egypt and abroad are the dolphins that can be seen swimming in the tiny pool that has become their cage. According to Dina Zulfikar, Egypt's leading independent animal welfare advocate, the dolphins are part of plans to erect a dolphinarium in the town in an effort to attract more tourism. The dolphins, according to Zulfikar and the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association (HEPCA), have been held in Egypt since August 17 in the private villa in Hurghada. The situation has become a public issue as tourism officials in Egypt and across the world converge on Hurghada for the HEPCA-sponsored World Tourism Day on Sunday. “Action is needed to end these horrible conditions the dolphins are in,” Zulfikar told Bikya Masr on Friday. “The captivity of the dolphins and their importation into Egypt is a violation of the CITES agreements,” she added. For its part, HEPCA has launched a petition against the captivity of the dolphins and the water conditions they are being held in. “The size of the pool is ridiculously inadequate (9 x 9 meters wide and 4 meters deep) for dolphins whose body length is about 3 meters and it is completely illegal in a country which actually has national standards regulating these facilities,” HEPCA said in a statement. The Bottlenose dolphins are to be the new attractions at a dolphinarium in Sahl Hashish in Hurghada. Leading the campaign to house the dolphins for visitors viewing are hotel owners in the area. None of the four 5-star hotels Bikya Masr contacted on Friday returned phone calls. One assistant manager did say that “the dolphins are a part of the tourism industry and will be well kept and treated well.” Making matters worse, the animals are from Japan, and according to HEPCA and international activists, are likely from the the now infamous Cove in Taiji, where tens of thousands of dolphins are slaughtered annually. Dolphins that escape the murder are then transferred across the globe to dolphinariums and zoos, including the one in Sharm el-Sheikh – Dolphina Park. HEPCA reported that four additional dolphins are “expected to be imported from Japan and assigned to the brand new dolphinarium in Makadi Bay, Hurghada” in Sahl Hashish. “There are serious conservation and welfare concerns associated with the capture of dolphins in drive hunts and other live capture operations and their export overseas for display in dolphinaria. These dolphins should never have come to Egypt. Due to a serious lack of regulations, these animals are now doomed to live a life of imprisonment,” HEPCA said in its call to obtain signatures in the campaign to end the dolphin transfer. Top international dolphin advocates, including Richard O'Barry of The Cove, is to arrive in Egypt on Sunday in a growing effort to put an end to the dolphinaria in Egypt and protect dolphins from the exploitation of Taiji. The dolphins in the video, HEPCA said, have already seen the “first signs of eye damage.” The media campaign has already begun and Zulfikar is hopeful that local Egyptian animal welfare organizations will “get involved and not wait.” Currently, no animal welfare organization has condemned the dolphin treatment, arguing they are “waiting for more information related to the investigation into the situation.” HEPCA's Managing Director Amr Ali said in a statement that his organization and the local government are hopeful that the dolphinarium in Hurghada will be canceled before its gates are open. “It is important to stress that – incredibly enough – various international and national governmental authorities granted all the permission needed to enable this terrible situation to exist. HEPCA and the Red Sea Governorate firmly oppose, and are determined to fight against any activity, which involves the trade, shipment or captivity of dolphins in the governorate,” he said in a statement. BM
