Animal park Connyland is considering importing dolphin semen in order to circumvent a proposed prohibition on importing new animals.

"/> Animal park Connyland is considering importing dolphin semen in order to circumvent a proposed prohibition on importing new animals.

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Connyland eyes dolphin semen import

Animal park Connyland is considering importing dolphin semen in order to circumvent a proposed prohibition on importing new animals.

Published: 29 May 2012 11:47 CEST
Connyland eyes dolphin semen import
Connyland (File)

Following the mysterious deaths last year of two Connyland dolphins, which caused consternation among animal lovers and activists and triggered accusations of ill-treatment, a new ban on the importation of dolphins is being considered.

Now the beleaguered park is considering importing semen instead in an attempt to breed dolphins from within the park as a way of getting around the ban, online news site 20 Minuten reported.

“Importing dolphin semen would circumvent the spirit of the new law, under which the holding of dolphins in Switzerland is impossible,” said Green Liberal Councillor, Isabelle Chevalley.

The National Council will decide on Tuesday whether to impose a ban on the importation of dolphins and whales. The lower house, the Council of States, has already sanctioned the proposed ban.

Activists say that this is not enough, and are calling for the ban to be extended to include semen to prevent breeding from within the park. Currently there is only one female at the park.

“We can’t let the last female be used as a breeding machine,” ProWal activist Andreas Morlock, told the website.

Chevalley believes the importation of dolphin semen would be “nothing but madness”.

“A dolphin in a dolphinarium is like a tiger turning around in its cage,” Chevalley said.

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DOLPHINS

What’s causing the mystery deaths of dolphins and whales off Italy’s coast?

Thirty-two dolphins and two whales have been found dead off the Tuscan coast since the beginning of the year, the Italian region's environmental protection agency said Friday.

Published: 3 August 2019 10:10 CEST
What's causing the mystery deaths of dolphins and whales off Italy's coast?
Photos: AFP

Autopsies showed many had stopped feeding, suggesting they had been hit by a virus, possibly measles, experts said.

Over just four days at the end of July the bodies of six dolphins were found, the agency's spokesman Marco Talluri told AFP.

“We analysed the stomachs of eight specimens and found that they were half empty, as if the animals had not eaten for two or three days,” said Italian biologist Cecilia Mancusi, an expert from the ARPAT environmental agency.

The dead cetaceans included bottlenose and stenella dolphins and a sperm whale.

“This could indicate that the dolphins had not been doing well for some time, and that it could be a virus like measles, which caused hundreds of dolphin deaths throughout Italy in 2013,” she was quoted as saying by the Corriere della Sera daily.

Results of tests performed on the carcases were not expected before the end of August.

Gianna Fabi, a researcher at the Institute for Biological Resources and Marine Biotechnology, who studied a similar phenomenon in June with 14 dolphins dying in the Adriatic over three weeks, said the cause was unlikely to be plastics or pollution.

“In both cases, traces would have been found in the body,” she told AGI news agency.

It could be that high temperatures, or heavy rains that lower the salinity of the sea, have sparked an epidemic, she said.

A 2008 to 2018 study found that on average around 18 marine mammals are found dead each year off Tuscany.

The area is part of the Pelagos Sanctuary for the protection of marine mammals, which was created by France, Italy and Monaco in 1999 and covers an area of 87,500 square kilometres.

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