Martinas situation has made it all the way to the Portuguese Environment Ministry.
The Portuguese Political Party People Animals Nature (PAN) questioned Martinha's whereabouts directly with the Ministry in November 2018.
The resultant Chief of Cabinet report, which we believe was provided after PAN's concerns about Martinha were raised directly with ICNF by the Ministry, was issued on 23 January 2019.
Of note the report says:
Since August 2016 Martinha has been in the new installations at CRAM-Q (CRAM-ECOMARE) which is where other animals were transferred, both animals in recovery and unreleasable.
In the new installations, the common dolphin has a tank of 1500m3 of water, 5 metres of depth and 800m2 of surface, with physical filtration, UV and ozone treatment, and she has access to live prey and a naturalised habitat. During the colder months, normally from December to January, Martinha is transferred to a pool with smaller dimensions (dimensions are very above those recommended by NMFS, USA), where the water temperature is artificially maintained at comfortable levels.
Both CRAM-ECOMARE and ICNF, will try to find an adequate location that can hold Martinha and offer her all the conditions that her wellbeing requires, but the fact that there are no other common dolphins in rehab, nor teams that have the experience already acquired by the CRAM-ECOMARE technicians with this species, makes any transfer of this dolphin to another installation or entity inviable. At present, Martinha is in good physical conditions and ICNF maintains full confidence in the CRAM-ECOMARE team.
Regardless of the continued assertions by CRAM--ECOMARE that all is well with Martinha, questions remain, if this is the case, why they continue to refuse any genuine up to date information about her – not even a current photo.
Martinha is a common dolphin, a highly social species, her lack of companionship, her enclosures, her overall wellbeing and why CRAM-ECOMARE continue to conceal her, remains very much our concern.
Martinha's Rescue Coalition are continuing efforts to learn more about Martinha, the conditions in which she is being kept and ultimately will continue to seek access to her to independently assess her wellbeing.