If you are planning on going and speaking at the upcoming Park Board meeting on Monday June 25, where no doubt a majority of commissioners will vote in favour of amending the bylaw to allow the Vancouver Aquarium to continue bringing wild dolphins captured in Japan and other countries, without breaking the law as they have in the past.....please sign up before Monday at Noon by phoning Julie Casanova (604) 257-8451.

Rob Light is now signed-up to represent NoWhales In Captivity at the upcoming Park Board meeting.

The main point to be made at the meeting is that the 1996 Park Board intended a phase out of cetaceans (even though incorporating the Aquarium's "compromise" exceptions in its bylaw), and the present Park Board in conjunction with the Aquarium intends to have captive dolphins in Vancouver in perpetuity.

John Nightingale has been breaking his 1996 pledge that the Aquarium will never cause a cetacean to be captured, and is now being clear that he wants a group of 8 or 10 dolphins. The new bylaw wording covers any capture (since by just chasing a dolphin you put it "in distress" and can consider that it needs "rehabilitation", and any fisher can qualify a dolphin for sale to Vancouver by being sure to injure it before capture), and the wording particularly covers all captures in Japan from where the Aquarium buys its dolphins.

The secondary point is that yes, the Aquarium did breach the old bylaw by bringing in Hana (who was caught post-1996 in 2003, and not under Canadian federal supervision), and that remains a historical fact, but the Park Board, after its initial letter (in October 2005 to Nightingale) saying don't bring Hana in, rolled over and let the Aquarium have its way.

Thanks,

Annelise (604) 736-9514