Born to be free

Read the article “Dolphin bound for Marine Life Park dies en route to Singapore” on channelnewsasia.com few days back:

SINGAPORE: A male dolphin bound for Marine Life Park at Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) has died on its flight to Singapore.

Wen Wen, which was estimated to be ten years old, died less than an hour before its plane landed in Singapore.

The dolphin was one of 11 on the three-hour long flight from the Philippines on Thursday.

A Marine Life Park spokesperson said that there were two marine mammal veterinarians and eight marine mammal specialists accompanying and monitoring the dolphins.

The dolphins were also given thorough medical examinations and were deemed healthy before the move.

Another 14 dolphins have already been transported earlier this week from Subic Bay, Philippines, where they were kept for training.

Animal welfare group Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) said that it was saddened by the loss and urged RWS to rehabilitate and release the remaining dolphins back into Solomon Islands waters.

There have been several attempts to block the Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins from being brought to Singapore.

Can’t help feeling sad for Wen Wen.

Remembered I once went to Hong Kong and go out of the sea to find the ‘pink dolphins’ and enjoyed the ride. The boatman bring us out to the sea and stopped there and we waited to watch the pink dolphins, we were told that they do not want to alert the dolphins and scare them off their ‘home’, so it all depends on our luck if we managed to see the dolphins. I guess luckily I did managed to have a few quick glance of the dolphins else I will be quite disappointed for the trip…

But hey! It’s not an excuses to force the dolphins away from their home and send them all the way over to Singapore.

Ever since the news have come out that Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) will open the world’s largest oceanarium in Singapore for ‘educational purpose’, there are a lot of objections from the Singaporeans. They even come up with website http://www.saddestdolphins.com and facebook page Save the World’s Saddest Dolphins.

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Of course I know the community is small and non-significant enough to change the decision of RWS, nor gain support from any authorities. But let me do my small little part to share the message on facebook:

We all are born free but there are thousands of reasons which make us not free… it can be due to monetary reasons, filial piety, lack of courage… but please, at least you made the choice to keep yourself from living a free life, why make others lost their freedom just because you cannot be free?

If you wish to go home everyday after work, why not let those poor animals back home?

P/S: A bit out of topic but other than the dophins, is it time for us to think of how we treat the other animals? It’s cruel enough to capture animals as pet, and it more cruel after you make those animal your pet, let them lost the ability of living in wild/nature, and then ‘release’ them back to nature when you are bored of them. I hope all people out there who keep pets will be responsible owners, do not abandon your pets, if you sick of them, at least help them find some reliable new owners to give your pets away.