Ocean Embassy withdraws its application for a dolphin capture permit

Protest against dolphin captures on Calle 50. Archive photo by Eric Jackson

Ocean Embassy ends its quest for a permit to capture dolphins here
by Eric Jackson

Neighbors in San Carlos contacted The Panama News, with tales of how Ocean Embassy, the controversial company founded by people who capture and export dolphins worldwide and said that they wanted to build a dolphin park here, was going ahead with construction work even though nobody had heard of any ruling on their permit application. But it turned out that perceptions were erroneous. There were work crews on the proposed dolphin park site, but it seems that they were dismantling rather than installing.

A few days later it was revealed that the company had sent a note to the Aquatic Resources Authority of Panama (ARAP), announcing that it had canceled its plans for a dolphinarium.

Those plans met with fierce and widespread public resistance, and Ocean Embassy's often-changing story of exactly what it intended to do and its criminal defamation charges against attorney and animal welfare activist Celma Montenegro didn't help matters.

The PRD mayor of San Carlos, Víctor López, led such a movement in favor of the dolphin park as there was, promising hundreds of jobs in the Panama Oeste district. But even by busing in supporters to stage a show of support in front of City Hall, supporters could only muster a crowd of a few dozen people, many of them children.

Opponents of the plan staged some much larger protests against dolphin captures, also attended by many people who were too young to vote. Polls indicated that more than 80 percent of Panamanians opposed the capture of wild dolphins from this country's waters, and Ocean Embassy's request to capture many more times the number of dolphins than would be needed at the proposed San Carlos park aggravated public suspicions. Various claims about the company intending to open a scientific research center or a dolphin hospital foundered upon the disclosure of the resumes of the people involved, as Ocean Embassy lacked sufficient qualified people to undertake such works.

The opponents of the dolphin capture proposal got help from abroad, including from the Humane Society in the United States and particularly from former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry, at one time the renowned handler of "Flipper" (actually, six different dolphins in the movie and TV series) but since the death of one of the animals a militant opponent of dolphin captures.

"It's great for the dolphins and it's great for the people of Panama --- especially those magnificent Panamanians who showed up to protest the dolphin captures," O'Barry said in an email to The Panama News. "Protesting works!" O'Barry added that "now that Ocean Embassy has packed up their capture nets and left the country with their tail between their legs, Panama continues to be a 'dolphin friendly country.' We will continue to follow them wherever they go."

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