Dubai: Animal welfare groups continue to flood Atlantis Hotel with requests to release a captured whale shark, even after the minister of environment and water told Gulf News it would have to be released.
In the latest of pleas, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) wrote a letter to the general manager of Atlantis, Alan Leibman asking the hotel to "immediately return Sammy the whale shark to her rightful home in the ocean".
Jason Baker, Director of Peta Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong forwarded the letter to Gulf News in which he writes, "Removing animals from the wild and putting them on display in captivity does nothing to promote true conservation efforts and is often a death sentence for marine animals who are torn away from their families and placed in a foreign environment. In the ocean, Sammy would live in deep water, swim for hundreds of miles to feed and mate, and constantly feel the ocean's currents, waves and tides. In your hotel, she will be forced to live in a virtual bathtub."
Peta Asia-Pacific is an affiliate of the world's largest animal rights organisation and has more than two million members and supporters.
He highlighted that in June 2005 two male whale sharks were taken from the waters off Taiwan and shipped to the Georgia Aquarium in the US. They both died within two years.
"We urge the Palm Atlantis Hotel to release Sammy to her rightful home immediately and refocus its considerable resources on efforts to help marine species in their natural habitats. Peta would be willing to cover the costs of transporting Sammy to deeper waters in exchange for a policy prohibiting any future capture of animals from the wild," the letter says.
Sammy the whale shark is a juvenile female and has been in captivity for the past 43 days.
