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Untold Story Behind the Captive Whale and Dolphin Industry Spanish language article about this below is online now at Also, there is an excellent documentary
called A Fall From Freedom -- the Untold Story Behind the Captive Whale and
Dolphin Industry, with a website where you can view the entire documentary
online for free, courtesy of the organization FRIENDS OF ANIMALS, go to
http://afallfromfreedom.org/view-movie to see the 82 minute film On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 11:58 PM, Glen
sethspeaksnyc@gmail.com wrote: The Friday show (October 28th), of ISSUES WITH JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, on
HLN will feature an interview with Ric O'Barry, star of the 2010 Academy
Award winning documentary THE COVE, and world renowned marine mammal expert
and activist. Ric will discuss 2 topics, one is the dolphinarium (delfinario)
being planned by Mayor Jorge Santini for the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico,
which is being publicized in the media by the city as a planned tourist
attraction where people can swim with dolphins, and as a center for "dolphin
assisted therapy" with children who are autistic, have Down's Syndrome, and
other disabilities; the other topic is the lawsuit filed by PETA (People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals) on behalf of five wild-caught orcas now
captive at SeaWorld (Ric O'Barry is a party in the lawsuit as an expert on
behalf of the orcas). (For those unable to tune in, a video clip of the story from today's show
will be available sometime in the next few days on the website of CNN.) Ric O'Barry has helped to successly campaign to prevent the opening of,
or to close down captive dolphin facilities (dolphinariums and marine mammal
parks) all over the world, a list of such closed or never opened facilities
is at http://savejapandolphins.org/blog/post/captive-facilities-closed
"Dolphin assisted therapy" for children with disabilities has been
scientifically invalidated by world renowned marine mammal experts. I am proud to have suggested that Jane Velez-Mitchell cover the planned
San Juan Puerto Rico dolphinarium, and I helped her to put this story
together for her show this Friday. Puerto Rico is full of thousands dogs and
cats suffering, hungry, and many ill, all over the streets (I myself take
care of over 100 cats in the streets of Puerto Rico 7 days a week to the
point of being broke financially and totally exhausted physically and
emotionally), has a couple of zoos with animals languishing in tiny cages or
tiny "environments" that there is barely enough funding to take care of
them, etc. And now they want to bring dolphins here to have them live in a
tiny pool for the rest of their lives so they can swim around in circles
with tourists and locals who might not have any understanding or awareness
of the inherent cruelty. See the following links for more information on the cruelty of keeping
dolphins captive, and on the scientific invalidity of what is known as
"dolphin assisted therapy": http://www.prijatelji-zivotinja.hr/index.en.php?id=754
http://www.wspa-international.org/helping/animalfriendlyliving/captivedolphins.aspx
http://www.wspa-usa.org/wspaswork/marinemammals/wrongwithswimwithdolphins.aspx There is further information below about the planned dolphinarium (delfinario
in Spanish), as well as information about PETA's lawsuit on behalf of the
orcas at SeaWorld parks in the US. Please tune in to Jane Velez-Mitchell's show on Friday (today/tonight!)
on HLN to see the segment with Ric O'Barry, and please spread the word about
this by forwarding this email to your friends and contacts who might have an
interest. Let's work together to ensure that Puerto Rico does not make the
grave mistake of bringing dolphins here to become captive for the rest of
their lives, we have enough more than enough sad situations with animals
here in Puerto Rico to deal with already!!! thank you for your attention, Glen Venezio Animal Concerns Puerto Rico San Juan, PR The Mayor of San Juan Puerto Rico, Jorge Santini, has announced a plan to
open the first and only dolphinarium in Puerto Rico ("Delfinario" in
Spanish), with the first stage of planning to be completed by November 2012.
He has chosen a developer for this initiative, Mr. Hugo de la Uz, of the
company Dolphin Discovery Entertainment of Puerto Rico Inc. They plan to
bring bottlenose dolphins to be used there, in "swim with dolphins" programs
and so-called "dolphin therapy", for children with autism, Down's symdrome,
and other handicaps. This "dolphin therapy" is being promoted in the media
about the project being released by the City of San Juan as a main "selling
point" of the dolphinarium. Most of the articles existing about this project are only in Spanish. I
will copy and paste them below, followed by "machine translations" from
Google Translate, which are not fully correct translations into English, but
at least give a basic idea of what the articles say. A TV commercial has been released by the Mayor and City of San Juan,
showing the planned dolphinarium, along with other planned development in
San Juan, it is on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl5H1eh-bCo "Dolphin therapy" has been shown to be basically invalid by numerous
marine mammal experts. Here are some links about that, as well as about the
inherent cruelty involved in keeping dolphins captive http://www.prijatelji-zivotinja.hr/index.en.php?id=754
http://www.wspa-international.org/helping/animalfriendlyliving/captivedolphins.aspx
http://www.wspa-usa.org/wspaswork/marinemammals/wrongwithswimwithdolphins.aspx An article with photos of the plans/models of the dolphinarium is online
in the SAN JUAN NEWS magazine published the City of San Juan, on the cover
and on pages 5-10. see the magazine at http://issuu.com/sanjuannews/docs/san_juan_news_oct-nov http://www.miprv.com/el-lado-oscuro-del-dolphin-tale-del-alcalde-santini/ El lado oscuro del 'dolphin tale' del alcalde Santini PUBLICADO EN OCT 19, 2011, EN: ECOTURISMO Y NATURALEZA
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