South Korea News NOTE: GREAT NEWS! THE DEMAND FOR CETACEAN IMPORT BANS IS HAPPENING ALL OVER THE WORLD, NOT JUST IN VANCOUVER, CANADA! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMPLETE NEWSARTICLE: Animal rights activists demand dolphin import ban 음성듣기 Veterinarians conduct an autopsy on a dolphin at Kyungpook National University in Daegu, Wednesday. /Yonhap By Kim Se-jeong Prompted by the death of a dolphin at an Ulsan aquarium, animal rights activists are calling for a complete ban on imports of the aquatic mammals to Korea. On Tuesday, a district government in Ulsan announced the death of a bottlenose dolphin. It was one of five in an aquarium at the Jangsaengpo Special Whale Culture Zone and had been imported from Japan only five days earlier. Bottlenose dolphins are on the list of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), but their trade is allowed internationally. In Korea, import is possible with permission from the Ministry of Environment. Whale-watching is a major tourist attraction for Ulsan, and the aquarium was built to attract more tourists to the coastal city. The cause of the death is unclear, according to the local government. The initial autopsy found a hematothorax and hemorrhaging in the dolphin’s lungs, and the local government is awaiting the final autopsy results. Hotpinkdolphines, a domestic NGO for protecting dolphins, accused the local government of poorly handling the dolphins during transport. “The dolphin must have died of stress,” the NGO said. “We have found that the dolphin was put in a small aquatic cage during the 1,000-kilometer journey and was left vulnerable to stress.” After arriving at a port in Busan, the dolphin was driven to the aquarium. The government issued instructions on how to maintain the cage during transport, but the NGO claimed such instructions are often not followed in reality. The NGO called on the local government to dismiss those who initiated the import and to release the four remaining animals at the aquarium into the wild. Furthermore, the activists insisted the central government enact a law to ban dolphins’ import completely. “The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Ministry of Environment should ban dolphin imports, which is a growing trend in other countries like India, Hungary, Chile, the United States and Costa Rica,” the NGO said. An anonymous official at the environment ministry acknowledged the issue. “We can consider banning as a future policy direction, but we need consultation first with the fisheries ministry,” he added. The fisheries ministry represents the interests of aquarium businesses. Big aquariums with dolphins are scattered around Geoje Island, Seoul, Ulsan and Jeju Island, and they import dolphins mainly from Japan. Many say a ban should go hand in hand with pressuring the export country. Japan, known for hunting dolphins, has been a major export country. The Taiji dolphin drive hunt there has died down over the years due to international pressure, but it still continues on a smaller scale, with captured dolphins sold to Korea.