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Mark Berman responds to allegations
From the Solomon Star
Viewpoint-Letters to the Editor
Thursday, 27 March 2008
DEAR EDITOR In response to Dr. Anita’s inflammatory comments in the Star Newspaper No 3576 I have the following comments.
Dr. Anita is incorrect when he says that the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Secretariat issued a communiqué that the numbers of dolphins removed will not jeopardise the sustainability of the Solomon Islands wild dolphin population.
The CITES Secretariat is in no position to claim that, not knowing the numbers of wild dolphins in Solomon Islands waters. The truth is that no one knows the true numbers, including Dr. Defrans, who Dr. Anita also mentions in the article.
In fact the lack of knowledge on the numbers of bottlenose dolphin populations in Solomon Islands waters led the world’s leading dolphin scientists of the World Conservation Union to urge that NO dolphin exports take place from the Solomons.
Dr. Anita is well aware of this strong and remarkable statement issued to the Solomon Island’s government and CITES Secretariat back in June 2007 when the dolphins that were eventually shipped to Dubai were first captured.
Further, Dr. Anita also does not state his true motivations for writing the article - his own financial gain from assisting in the dolphin export business.
Dr. Anita - a terrestrial veterinarian - certified as fit the 28 dolphins that were sent to Mexico in 2003. Anyone with even a remote interest in animals will understand that animals from one geographic population should not be allowed to mix with animals from another geographic population because of the risk of transmitting disease.
Yet this happened with the dolphins sent to Mexico - a significant percentage tested positive for antibodies of infectious diseases before they were exported yet Dr. Anita certified them as fit for export. Those animals later intermingled with wild Mexican dolphins exposing them to alien diseases they had little immunity to. Mexico has since banned dolphin imports into the country.
Readers may also be interested to know that a few months ago Dr. Anita visited the Caribbean - renown for its captive dolphin facilities - advocating the sustainable use of Solomon Islands dolphins. He made a presentation at a Caribbean veterinary conference entitled “The Role of Cetaceans as a Sustainable and Renewable Resource in the Solomon Islands.
Dr. Anita’s talk was peppered with inaccuracies, rhetoric and bizarre statements like “our traditional dolphin harvesting is not at all linked to dolphin deaths.” If harvesting dolphins does not mean killing them, then what does it mean?
He also attacked conservation organisations for trying to protect the Solomon Islands wild dolphins. He disingenuously implied that bottlenose dolphins are the species most frequently hunted in the Solomon Islands for their teeth and that live capture is better than traditional harvesting. Any Solomon Islander knows this to be false and that it is spinner dolphins that are the most frequently targeted animals.
He also defined sustainable as “If the predicted catch is equal to or more than the actual catch then the population harvest is sustainable”. Even a layman can see that this ‘rule of thumb’ is complete nonsense.
He further states that 5%-10% removal rates annually would be sustainable - this is completely without scientific basis because the total population numbers as mentioned above, are unknown and in any event, given the slow reproductive rates of dolphins such a removal rate would be dangerous.
Dr. Anita’s true motivations appear toward the end of his presentation when he states “A support for a vote to ban traditional dolphin harvesting and dolphin exports (like the former Minister of Fisheries) is your exit ticket from the Parliament.” He is clearly not an impartial commenter and his views and opinions must therefore not be taken as such.
With regard to Mark Berman and Lawrence Makili of the Earth Island Institute, Dr. Anita should realise this NGO has tremendous respect within the tuna industry worldwide. Canned tuna, including Soltai in markets worldwide are dolphin safe due to the Earth Island certification scheme.
The information from Dr.. Anita is not true with regard to bycatch of dolphins in tuna fleets. The claim of 60,000 dolphin deaths in the tuna fisheries is ABSURD. There is no proof to this ridiculous claim! It is illegal for US flagged tuna vessels to fish on dolphins. Korean and Taiwan tuna purse seiners do not set nets on dolphins to catch tuna, and the claims are amazing by Dr. Anita, when at the same time , these two countries are granting aid to Solomon Island fisheries.
If Dr. Anita’s statements were at all correct, the world tuna markets would have collapsed long ago due to dolphin mortality which is unacceptable in the US, SE Asia, Australasia, and EU markets. I, Mark Berman will not need any investigation by the government of the Solomon Islands, unless free speech is banned in this country.
I have broken no laws, and I have access to Soltai, Global Tuna, and Trimarine-National Fisheries Development for dolphin safe tuna audits as their guests. I do not collect a salary in the Solomon Islands. If Freedom of Speech is not allowed in the Solomon Islands where people can voice their views just as Dr. Anita has, then the Solomons will indeed have serious problems. Mark Berman and Lawrence Makili are entitled to their statements just as Dr.Anita.
Earth Island does have the capacity under freedom of speech and the press to call for economic boycotts. The Western Province government only became a target along with Soltai when we learned there was an attempt to change the policy of this province to allow dolphin captures and exports. When we learned this was NOT true, we have not proceeded with this boycott and congratulate Premier Lokopio and Soltai for standing firm to allow dolphins continued freedom in the Western Province waters.
Dr. Anita needs to get his facts straight and tell the truth about his own ambition to become a dolphin trader himself with Wildlife International Network in competition with Robert Satu.
In addition, by capturing and exporting dolphins as traders and brokers, Robin Friday and Ted Turner who are US citizens are operating outside of the US law known as the Marine Mammal Protection Act. They would not be able to capture and export dolphins from US waters.
You should also know that the Alliance for Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums is nothing more than a trade and lobbying organisation.
This Alliance again is in this business to exploit marine mammals for MONEY. It is not legal to capture dolphins in the US, and any aquarium or theme park in the US that would apply to import such dolphins from the Solomons, would fail in getting the license.
The Alliance knows this full well. NOT even Japan can export dolphins to the US from their brutal capture operations in Taiji . Dr. Defran’s studies are not set in stone and must be peer reviewed.
The bottom line is that as more nations cease allowing the captures and imports of dolphins, this short termed and cruel industry of selling dolphins will end in the Solomon Islands as soon there will be no customers, and finally dolphins will enjoy the freedom from human abuse.
Earth Island’s work is to save dolphins and the ocean eco-system. Lawrence Makili and I are proud of the work we do, and we have the respect of the tuna industry for the dolphin safe tuna markets worldwide.
Mark Berman
Associate Director
Earth Island Institute
San Francisco, USA