More info needed on dolphin sustainability
-conservation group
Stabroek News
February 12, 2004
Local conservationists say the Guyana Wildlife Division (GWD) need to release information on how sustainable the trade in dolphins might really be.
Sources say foreign technical experts who facilitate the transport of dolphins are in Guyana currently waiting on local wildlife exporters to secure permits for the trade.
A marine conservationist told Stabroek Business that he has received reports of dolphin research currently in the Waini River. The Waini is said to be populated with river dolphins, a smaller dolphin than the bottlenose.
It is not clear from which areas the dolphins will be sourced for exports from Guyana but according to reports, bottlenose dolphins are located about 100 miles off the Berbice River.
A dolphin can be sold abroad for as much as US$30,000 and in some cases a trained dolphin is sold for US$60,000. According to local reports, the captured dolphins may be headed for Florida.
But wildlife traders are worried that the trade in dolphins, a popular target of animal rights activists, could jeopardise Guyana's wildlife exports by incurring a Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species Flora and Fauna (CITES) ban.
Khalawan, the director of the Guyana Wildlife Division told Stabroek Business last week that a non-detrimental study by the division showed the dolphin population at below 10,000, and this was sufficient to sustain a trade.
"I will need to know more than population," says Lennox Cornette, communications manager at Conser-vation International-Guyana. "Ten thousand [dolphins] may seem to be a large number," Cornette says, but adds that a careful study needs to be done on the dolphins' reproductive habits.
CITES, which is made up of 164 countries including Guyana, stipulates that before any member country export an Appendix II animal, such as dolphins, a conclusive study must be done to determine that this trade would not be detrimental to the population.
Marzia Yater, chief legislation and administration officer in charge of Guyana at CITES Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland said the body will meet this week to discuss whether Guyana can export dophins and if the non-detrimental report was received.
Khalawan has promised to release that report once CITES responds on the issue. Should another CITES member or another organization challenge the non-detrimental study, CITES would be bound to look at the concerns raised.
Stabroek Business understands that in the 1980s Guyana was suspended from the trade by CITES because it did not have a quota system for wildlife exports nor did it have in place wildlife legislation.
Officials of the Environ-mental Protection Agency were unavailable to say if the non-deterimental study was approved by that body.
Information on the birth and death rates of the dolphins and how sustainable the trade might be are still to be revealed.
Rueben Charles, a consultant and former chief fishes officer who conducted the non-detrimental study told Stabroek Business that he would not comment further on the issue until he receives permission from the relevant authorities. But he did state that he is qualified to do this study. He holds a Masters Degree in Marine Biology.
Dolphin exports are not new to Guyana. Pioneer wildlife exporter Syril Lowe, who started the trade in the early 1940s, once sold two dolphins to a German zoo called Duisburg, according to a close member of that family.
The US in 1991 imposed a ban on Latin American tuna imports from countries that did not ensure local fishermen took steps to protect dolphins.
Guyana, a member of the Latin American Fishing Or-ganization (OLDEPESCA) in 1995, then lobbied to ensure Latin American countries ensured dolphins were not snared in fishermen's nets.
Dolphin mortality rate in 1992 because of tuna fishing was 15,000, equivalent to 0.16 per cent of the total global dolphin population of 9.5 million. But this rate fell to 3,600 in 1993 or 0.04 percent of the total population, because measures were taken by Latin American countries to save the dolphins.
The World Wildlife Fund last year challenged the non-detrimental findings for the exportation of dolphins from the Solomon Islands, a non-CITES country which caught up to 200 dolphins for trading purposes.
The WWF on August 8, 2003 noted that their concerns related specifically to the scientific grounds of the required non-detriment findings on which the exports were based and its legality. The WWF wanted the findings to address how the increased fishing levels in the Solomon Islands to feed the dolphins in captivity impacted on the marine environment. Dolphins eat about 18-36 kilograms of fish each day and fishermen on the islands are said to be using dynamite to harvest fish for them.
According to World Society for the Protection of Animals (Canada) website CITES is now investigating whether the export permit issued by the Solomon Islands is valid.