[Fwd: Caribbean Captive Dolphins]

Miami Herald
Sun, Feb. 17, 2002
Front Page

  U.S. probes Cuban dolphin deals
  Purchases of sea creatures could have violated the embargo

  BY CHARLES D. SHERMAN
  csherman@herald.com

  MEADS BAY, Anguilla -- The U.S. Treasury office that enforces the
trade embargo on Cuba is investigating whether Americans have bought
hundreds of thousands of
  dollars worth of dolphins from the Cuban government, a main supplier
of the animals for proliferating tourist attractions in the Caribbean.

  ''There is an open investigation,'' said Robert Fernández, special
agent in charge at U.S. Customs in Puerto Rico. ``If there's a U.S.
citizen, U.S. resident or U.S.
  entity involved, it would be a violation.''

  Animal rights activists who closely follow the investigation say U.S.
agents are tightly focused on two dolphin parks set up by Americans on
Anguilla and Antigua,
  high-end resorts in the Leeward Islands east of Puerto Rico.

  From Anguilla with its lavish $1,000-a-night hotel rooms to the
bargain resorts on the Gulf coast of Mexico, the Caribbean now has more
than 30 dolphin parks,
  opened mostly since 1990. Customers who pay between $100 and $150 for
a 30-minute session can swim with, touch and feed the creatures.

  The probe, launched by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign
Assets Control, has inserted U.S. agents into a raging animal rights
battle involving a colorful cast
  that includes Robin Leach, host of television's Lifestyles of the Rich
and Famous; Che Guevara's 38-year-old daughter, Celia, the chief marine
mammal veterinarian at
  Cuba's National Aquarium; Ric O'Barry, a Miami resident and former
Flipper trainer at Miami's Seaquarium who has turned savior; and Gwen
McKenna, a
  mild-sounding Toronto housewife, who with vast archives on dolphin
exploitation ranks as one of the world's fiercest dolphin defenders.

  While U.S law permits the capture of dolphins, a voluntary moratorium
has taken hold in American waters since 1990, chiefly as a result of
pressure brought by rights
  activists. When applications are made for the federal permits required
to catch the animals, dolphin defenders rush to create negative
publicity.

  In the meantime, Cuba's Ministry of Science and Technology and its
National Aquarium in Havana, where Guevara's daughter works, have
captured a lucrative market
  for the animals, not only in the Caribbean but also in Europe. The
Science Ministry licenses dolphin exports and voluntarily submits data
to a U.N. agency
  responsible for compiling information on world trade in animals.

  The official figures reported by Havana show steady dolphin sales --
82 in the last five years -- making Cuba the world's leading exporter.
Worldwide, there are 1,000
  dolphins in captivity.

  On the international market, dolphins cost between $40,000 and $70,000
for ''green,'' or newly captured, animals.

  Animal rights activists say federal investigators have targeted a
South African-born physician, Graham Simpson, who has dual U.S. and
British citizenship. He and
  his wife, Pam Pike, also an American, started the Anguilla and Antigua
operations, run now by Dolphin Fantaseas Ltd., a company based in
Bermuda. Corporate
  filings on Anguilla suggest that other Americans may have invested to
help Simpson in initial stages.

  `THEY ARE THE ENEMY'

  Robin Leach, who has had a home on Antigua since 1990, is lending his
media heft to the activists' cause. From Las Vegas, where he lives part
time, the television
  personality is bald in his description of the Simpsons: ``They are the
enemy.''

  Railing against the couple, Leach says: ``It's totally immoral.
Dolphins don't perform unless they are starved.''

  When Dolphin Fantaseas, originally called Dolphin Lagoon, was
preparing to open its first site on Anguilla last spring, local news
reports described the arrival from
  Cuba of six dolphins, packed in ice, on a Russian charter flight. Out
of water, dolphins will overheat.
  The animals were installed in a large tank on a stunning promontory at
Meads Bay on the northwest coast of Anguilla. Looking much like an
oversize swimming pool,
  the tank is a few steps from a comfortable beige-colored bungalow
where the Simpsons live along with an elderly black Labrador, a pure
white macaw and a large
  library of books on spirituality.

  Offering customers what are called educational swim encounters,
Dolphin Fantaseas charges $105 for a half-hour session. Tourists in life
vests enter the 17-foot-deep
  pool to touch and feed the powerful animals, and to listen underwater
to their ethereal creaking noises. The feel of a dolphin is akin to
stroking a shelled hard-boiled
  egg.

  DOMINICAN BROKER INVOLVED

  To obtain the animals, Simpson says, he signed a contract with a
broker in the Dominican Republic. He says the broker never told him Cuba
was the supplier until
  just before delivery, adding that even then he gave no thought to
possible violations of U.S. law.

  ''I thought of myself as a British citizen living for the last three
years in Anguilla, which has no law against buying from Cuba. It really
didn't occur to me this might be
  a problem.'' Simpson says he has traveled to Cuba on his British
passport.

  A boyish-looking man of 51 with long, floppy gray hair, Simpson is an
imposing figure, six feet three inches tall and more than 200 pounds,
looking much like the
  rugby player he was when growing up in South Africa in the 1960s.

  Before coming to Anguilla, he practiced medicine in Reno, Nev., where
for years he combined mainstream and alternative therapies to promote a
holistic approach to
  physical and spiritual well-being.

  Dolphin Fantaseas' slogan is ''Experience the dream.'' But the
Simpsons recount nightmares in dealing with animal rights groups, which
they say have hounded them
  with mass letter-writing campaigns to the governments on Anguilla and
Antigua, with threats of a tourism boycott against Anguilla, and with
vicious attacks on their
  personal lives.

  Simpson wrote a long, anguished letter to the local press, decrying
his critics. Summing up, he said: ``The usual activist procedure is to
try to scare people . . . by
  threatening a tourism boycott. I am very upset that the dolphin
activists don't focus on the issues, but rather try to personally smear
people in the hope of discrediting
  a fine dolphin swim project.''

  ANIMAL RIGHTS ISSUES

  McKenna and O'Barry, who is a consultant for the World Society for the
Protection of Animals, have led the charge against the Simpsons. They
say the issues are
  the violent capture methods used on highly intelligent, free-ranging
creatures that should not be taken from their pods, or families, to live
out lives in barren tanks or
  confined sea enclosures. ''Dolphins have a brain a third larger than
ours,'' O'Barry says.

  McKenna, who fights on behalf of no other animal, admits that when it
comes to dolphins, ''I am ruthless.'' In trying to stop the Simpsons,
she appealed for an
  international tourism boycott of Anguilla, and she raised money to
send O'Barry there in December 2000 to speak publicly on the issue.

  It backfired. O'Barry was shouted down by islanders enraged that
activists might try to damage a main source of their livelihood. O'Barry
says he never supports
  boycotts, and McKenna now regards the effort as a tactical mistake.

  At his South Miami home, O'Barry calls Dolphin Fantaseas ''the most
dangerous operation I have ever seen around the world.'' He fears that
Simpson and his partners
  eventually intend to sell dolphins, pointing to a recent agreement
between Dolphin Fantaseas and the Antigua government of Prime Minister
Lester Bird, which gives
  the company the right to capture 12 dolphins a year.

  Indeed, Simpson and his partners have recently created another
company, Dolphin Leasing Inc. But Simpson and other company executives
reject the notion, saying
  that no captures have taken place in Antigua so far, and that if they
do, the animals would be used only in Dolphin Fantaseas attractions.
  In trying to cut down sales, O'Barry says, he went to Cuba in 1997 to
seek the aid of Celia Guevara, thinking she could help slow Cuba's
capture program.

  ''Vets have the most influence in the captivity industry, but she
didn't show for our meeting,'' O'Barry says. ``Here's a woman who has a
lot of power. She stands out.
  That was my hope.''

  In meetings with other officials at the National Aquarium, O'Barry
says, he failed to persuade the Cubans to end their dolphin exports. His
effort at the aquarium was
  probably futile because commercial sales are handled by another
science ministry office.

  Last December, after Simpson opened his second site on Antigua, Leach
invited O'Barry to the island to speak publicly. But before boarding a
flight at Miami
  International Airport, O'Barry was told he would be arrested and
returned to the United States if he tried to enter Antigua. He learned
later that the island government
  considered him a national security threat.

  ACTIVISTS CRITICIZED

  Simpson, meanwhile, expresses only derision for the activists. It is
O'Barry, McKenna, Leach and their followers, he says, who have
unrelentingly harassed him and
  his family, going so far as to meddle in his finances. To cause him
embarrassment in the islands, the activists have delved into and
publicized a costly bankruptcy
  proceeding Simpson was forced into over his development of a Reno golf
resort.

  The activists also bandied gossip about his recent divorce and
remarriage to Pike. ''These people have no moral grounds,'' Simpson
says.

  As for the trade embargo, O'Barry says: ''I don't agree with the law,
but we are using it.'' Clarifying, he adds that ``the embargo should be
lifted for humanitarian
  reasons. However -- and this is very important -- the part of the
embargo that prohibits Americans from purchasing dolphins from Cuba
should forever remain.''

  In recent weeks, the Treasury Department has issued stiff fines
against Americans who have spent money in Cuba after traveling to the
island without seeking U.S.
  permission. Technically, it is not illegal to go to Cuba, but it is
illegal to spend money there.

  So for Simpson, the continuing attacks from animal rights militants
will seem minor travails if U.S. officials find a link between Cuba and
the Americans behind
  Dolphin Fantaseas. ''Do you think I'll be able to go to United States
again?'' he asked.

  Penalties for violating the embargo range up to $1 million in
corporate fines and tens of thousands in individual fines, and, in a
criminal case, may bring as much as 10
  years in prison.

    © 2001 miamiherald and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
Received on Tue Feb 19 09:03:03 2002