Marineland loses last hope for new dolphins

Napier's Marineland looks doomed to die with its last dolphin, after a failed attempt to change the rules to acquire new dolphins.

Marineland will not be allowed to get new dolphins and Mayor Barbara Arnott indicated that it would not be able to continue as a zoo once its last survivor, the elderly Kelly, dies.

A report by Parliament's local body and environment select committee has upheld the Conservation Department's policy of banning the importation or capture of dolphins.

Performing dolphins have been the main attraction at Marineland since it opened in the mid-1960s, and the city council believes that, without dolphins, the zoo will not attract enough visitors to pay its way.

"The council will now look at ways of using this space that will not be an ongoing rates burden for our people," Mrs Arnott said.

To keep Marineland going without dolphins would cost the council $800,000 a year in operating costs and that was too much, she said.

There had been hopes that Marineland could attract outside funding to continue its work as a marine animal hospital, but Mrs Arnott said that was unlikely.

She said if the facility on Marine Pde could no longer be a zoo-it also holds seals, sea lions, penguins and other marine animals - other uses suggested included a Maori tourism centre and a Hawke's Bay wine centre.

Staff had prepared plans for possible uses, but the council had made no decisions, Mrs Arnott said.

More than four million people have visited Marineland since it opened, but numbers have been dropping since dolphin Shona died in April 2006, leaving Kelly as the sole survivor.

The select committee was reporting on a petition lodged by Napier's Labour list MP Russell Fairbrother, asking Parliament to take note of another petition, organised by Napier city councillor Harry Lawson. That petition, with 13,500 signatures, asked for Marineland to be allowed to acquire new dolphins.

In declining to change the policy, the committee said it accepted scientific evidence about the detrimental impact of captivity on dolphins provided by the department and others.

- © Fairfax NZ News