Letter from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare to Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia
Dear Mr President
As Members of Parliament we have been supporting improvements in animal welfare within Asia and have been delighted to see the work your Government has done in this area over recent years.
One issue that continues to rise in profile is the number of wild caught dolphins being held captive in Indonesia, including those being used within a travelling circus and those held within swimming pools at tourist facilities in Bali. The Wake Dolphin facility in Keramas, Bali, has been receiving a significant amount of international media attention recently following the development of an online petition to close the facility by an Australian tourist. This petition has seen support from Australian celebrities and has reached over 400,000 international signatures. It is now gaining profile in the UK which has promoted my letter to you in the hope that you will take action to end this captivity of dolphins.
Confining dolphins in captivity presents serious welfare issues as they are wide-ranging, social animals and captivity lacks the social, visual and auditory stimuli of their natural environment. The dolphins being held within the travelling circuses, and the Wake Dolphin facility, are being held in an inappropriate environment and one in which cannot meet their complex physical and behavioural needs. These dolphins are being managed as part of a hotel complex and therefore it is unlikely that the staff have the animal management or the veterinary expertise to ensure that the health and welfare of the individual animals is maintained.
The welfare of dolphins used in travelling circuses is further compromised by their training, frequent transport, and the lack of suitable resting and holding facilities at circus venues. The dolphins are held in close confinement for almost all of their lives, forced to travel for hours on end, and exposed to regular human handling and excessive noise. Water quality is also an issue; the ‘tanks’ for travelling circus dolphins are temporary and must use local water sources (of varying quality) and ordinary table salt to salinate the water. These factors are likely to be causing a significant amount of stress and suffering for these individual animals.
We are therefore writing to ask that you consider the confiscation of the dolphins from the travelling circus and the Wake dolphin facility and to take the necessary steps to rehabilitate these dolphins. If facilities like this are allowed to continue to operate within Indonesia, it is likely that more will develop to further exploit dolphins in this way. It would be a tremendous achievement to ensure these facilities can no longer exhibit dolphins in this manner so that Indonesia is seen as a country which sets high standards of welfare and conserves these creatures in their wild environment. This would be welcomed internationally.
Yours sincerely
Henry Smith
Member of Parliament for Crawley
Co-Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare
Sent on behalf of the following Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom:
Angela Smith MP
Neil Parish MP
Jim Fitzpatrick MP
Rob Flello MP
Andrea Jenkyns MP
Caroline Lucas MP
Copied to:
Her Excellency Ms Siti Nurbaya Bakar, Minister of Environment & Forestry of Indonesia
Mr Bambang Dahono Adji, Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation of Indonesia
His Excellency Mr Teuku Mohammad Hamzah Thayeb, Indonesian Ambassador to the United Kingdom