NO MORE WHALES! NO WHALES IN CAPTIVITY OPEN LETTER TO THE VANCOUVER PARK BOARD November 29, 2016 RE: Park Board has authority to ban whale imports Dear Madam Chair, On behalf of the members and volunteers of No Whales In Captivity, I would like to thank you for proposing that the city hold a plebiscite on whale captivity during Vancouver's 2018 municipal elections. While we still need to discuss the wording of such whale referendum vote, there are more pressing issues at hand. The empty whale show tank at the Vancouver Aquarium gives the Vancouver Park Board commissioners an immediate opportunity to finally end the importation of more whales. I understand that commissioner Mackinnon asked park board staff at your board meeting last night, whether the Park Board has the authority to impose a moratorium on the importation of whales until the public can be consulted in 2018. With all due respect, Madam Chair, your staff's negative answer was wrong. In 1996 the Vancouver Park Board, responding to the ethical principles of the community, enacted a bylaw intended to phase out the further introduction and imprisonment of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) in Vancouver parks. The Parks Control Bylaw section 9(e) was enacted by the Vancouver Park Board on November 4, 1996, under the authority of the Vancouver Charter, section 491 (a), which gives the Park Board the power to pass bylaws for "the exclusion from any of the parks, or any part thereof, of any animal or vehicle". This is section 9(e) 9. (e) No person shall bring into any park or keep or otherwise maintain in any park any aquatic mammal of the Cetacean order including, but not limited to, baleen whales, narwhals, dolphins, porpoises, killer whales and beluga whales, which has been captured or otherwise taken from its natural wild habitat, except that this prohibition shall not apply to: (i) captive cetaceans caught from the wild prior to September 16, 1996 and cetaceans born into captivity at any time, (ii) cetaceans which are already being kept or maintained in a park as of September 16, 1996, (iii) a member of an endangered cetacean species, provided that approval for bringing it into a park has first been obtained from the Park Board, and (iv) an animal that has been captured or otherwise taken from its natural wild habitat for the purpose of rehabilitating it from injury or preventing its death due to stranding provided that its capture or taking and subsequent release to natural habitat is done under the jurisdiction and with the approval of the federal agency responsible and provided that the Park Board has been informed in as timely a manner as possible. We strongly urge you to consider imposing an immediate ban on the importation of more whales, as the Vancouver Charter, section 491 (a) gives the Vancouver Park Board the authority to do just that. It is time for the Park Board to end the international commercial trade in performing beluga whales in Stanley Park. Many thanks for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Annelise Sorg President No Whales In Captivity