We have received alarming reports from colleagues in the United States indicating that the *Solomon Islands government is being asked to authorise the capture of 50 wild dolphins for the international captivity trade. If approved, these highly intelligent marine mammals would be removed from their ocean homes and sold to facilities around the world.
We have urgently written to the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, urging him and his cabinet to reject this proposal immediately.
This is not an isolated incident. Over the years, dozens of wild dolphins have already been taken from Solomon Islands waters and exported. In 2007, despite a live-export ban introduced in 2003 following international outcry over the shipment of 28 bottlenose dolphins to Mexico, another group of dolphins was sent to the Atlantis The Palm resort in Dubai. Tragically, nine dolphins from the earlier Mexico shipment had already died, and ten dolphins from the Dubai consignment are now known to have perished, including three who died before even being shipped.
The pattern is clear: capturing and exporting wild dolphins comes at a devastating cost. Approving the capture of another 50 dolphins would be a grave and irreversible mistake -threatening not only the lives of those taken, but the survival of the population they are taken from.
*southwestern Pacific Ocean, approximately 2000 km to the northeast of Australia.
