Yahoo – AFP, Tolkun Namatbayeva, January 21, 2016
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| Dolphins during a performance at the Moscow Travelling Dolphinarium (AFP Photo/Vyacheslav Oseledko) |
Bishkek
(Kyrgyzstan) (AFP) - Inside a travelling aquatic circus in Kyrgyzstan's capital
Bishkek, whoops and cheers go up as a dolphin leaps out of a pool and
slam-dunks a ball through a basketball net.
Hundreds of
people packed inside the Moscow Travelling Dolphinarium to watch dolphins and
beluga whales perform acrobatic stunts, against a painted backdrop of blue
skies and palm trees.
 |
A beluga
whale performs at the Moscow
ravelling Dolphinarium in Bishkek
(AFP
Photo/Vyacheslav Oseledko)
|
"A
real sportsman doesn't give up so easily," she booms as a beluga named
Dandy leaps out of the water but fails to whack a ball hanging on a string with
his tail.
But he does
not fluff up his second attempt.
"And
he's got it this time!" the presenter shouts as the crowd roars in
approval over a soundtrack of blaring rock and Russian pop ballads.
While the New
Year's show wowed crowds in landlocked Kyrgyzstan, it also fuelled a
long-running debate in former Soviet states about cruelty to animals.
Travelling
dolphinariums are banned across much of the world but remain popular in the
ex-Soviet bloc where forms of circus entertainment prohibited in the West, such
as acts with wild animals like lions and bears, continue to thrive despite
concerns about animal welfare.
Yet
opposition to animal abuse has grown in recent times, with local activists
using the Internet to gather data and mobilise opposition to practises they say
involve animal cruelty or stress.
Before the
Moscow dolphin circus rolled into town, 1,500 people signed an online petition
imploring Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev to ban it.
On opening
night, a group of protesters picketed the performance with posters featuring
drawings of weeping dolphins, some of them by children.
"Why
has this dolphin circus ended up in Kyrgyzstan? Because it has nowhere else to
go and we are a poor country with lax legislation," Anna Kirilenko of
BIOM, an environmentalist non-profit organisation based in Bishkek, told AFP.
Authorities
in Bishkek however defended the show.
"Dolphins
love to be touched. Training and performances are a form of play for
dolphins...they were born in captivity and thus would not survive in the
wild," the mayor's office said in a statement.
 |
Before the
Moscow dolphin circus rolled into town, 1,500 people signed an online
petition
imploring Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev to ban it (AFP
Photo/
Vyacheslav Oseledko)
|
Video
footage secretly recorded by citizen journalists showing a circus whale in the
Russian city of Perm being kept in a small metal container for days on end has
been used by activists to press their case.
A
representative of the Moscow Travelling Dolphinarium denied any connection
between the circus and the whale in Perm, saying the company never toured in
Russia outside the capital.
Shooting
stray dogs
Animal
abuse is a recurring theme in Kyrgyzstan -- the second-poorest country to
emerge from the breakup of the Soviet Union.
In 2011,
authorities in Bishkek announced plans to shoot around 10,000 stray dogs,
sparking an international outcry and a number of petitions demanding the
creatures be spared.
The
government defended the shootings, arguing that housing the dogs or organising
a programme of mass sterilisation was too costly.
Neighbouring
Tajikistan also has a sometimes unsavoury reputation on animal welfare.
For many
years, a white-bearded man patrolled the streets of the capital Dushanbe with a
sad-looking muzzled bear, offering rides to passers-by. Both he and his bear
died in 2013.
The stress
and discomfort suffered by aquatic mammals in travelling circuses has attracted
particular attention.
In 2010, a
beluga whale called Dale died from heart problems in Kazakhstan while touring
with a Russian circus.
 |
Animal-welfare
organisations prostest against the Moscow Travelling Dolphinarium
during their
rally outside the dolphinarium in Bishkek (AFP Photo/Vyacheslav Oseledko)
|
Dale's
circus partner lost interest in performing tricks after his death and
disappeared from the show shortly afterwards, Kazakh media reported.
'Worst of
the worst'
"These
travelling dolphin circuses are the worst of the worst in terms of
cruelty," said Richard O'Barry, founder of the US-based Dolphin Project
that campaigns against dolphin captivity.
"They
haul dolphins and whales around in a truck. They live in a coffin-sized box.
Then they milk as much money out of them before they die from stress-related
diseases."
O'Barry
once trained dolphins for the US television show Flipper but turned his back on
such displays after the dolphin that most often played the lead character died
in what O'Barry believes was a suicide triggered by depression.
Dolphin circus sparks animal cruelty debate in Central Asia https://t.co/l9OAu2FW0Q pic.twitter.com/yIgrm8kdKR
— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 21, 2016
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