DOLPHIN RIGHTS: Sit-in at Harderwijk Doolphinarium
Photo credit: FB/Active for Justice
Animal rights campaigners blocked the entrance to the Harderwijk Dophinarium on October 19.
Members of the Bite Back and Active for Justice organisations claimed that the dolphins there live in “pathetic” conditions and are taught to perform tricks for the public, flouting government regulations.
Arriving ten minutes before the aquarium was due to open at 10am, demonstrators dressed in black with hoodies and scarves obscuring their faces attached themselves the entrance gates with lengths of steel piping.
Others preferred to wear dolphin costumes, explaining that they wished to expose the situation of the animals in a playful but highly visible way.
Some carried banners and placards, handing out leaflets that condemned the conditions imposed on the Dolphinarium’s marine mammals.
Trainers allowed to surf dolphins’ snouts and dorsal fins
A Bite Back spokesperson explained that sea lions which were three metres long were kept in a pool that was only l.6 metres deep.
“We find this unacceptable,” they said. “It is not for nothing that the Dolphinarium was recently excluded from the European trade association.
“If you care about the animals, don’t visit this park.”
The campaigners added that the trainers at the Dolphinarium were still allowed to “surf” on the creatures’ snouts and dorsal fins and sea lions were taught to wave their flippers at the public.
“We believe that now is the time to close this park and give the animals an animal-friendly future,” they said.
The Dolphinarium management retaliated by opening up a side entrance and putting up screens at the main entrance so that the protesters were no longer visible to the public.
Dophinarium sit-in compared to trespassing
Director Alex Tiebot, quoted in the Dutch media, said he was “surprised” by the sit-in, which he described as “the criminal activities of activists.”
If animal rights groups did not agree with the Dolphinarium’s mission, there were other paths they could follow which included applying for permission to demonstrate or starting legal proceedings, he said.
Tiebot compared the protest to breaking and entering and said he hoped that the activists could be identified and reported to the police for trespassing.
By 5pm all of the demonstrators had left but vowed that they would return to stage further protests.
These would continue until “every cage and pool was empty” at the Dolphinarium, Active for Justice declared on their Facebook page.
