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Sea Shepherds on the Whale Sharks at Sentosa IR
 Letter from Grant W. Pereira Asian Education Advisor Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

I read with concern your article entitled "Activist against having a whale of a time" by Krist Boo in the Straits Times (October 26th, Home page) that Krezner International plans to have an aquarium at the Integrated Resort to keep the endangered whaleshark and beluga whales.

How ironic on the same day, the "TODAY" newspaper had an article entitled "WHALE SHARK RESEARCHER, BRAD NORMAN WINS ROLEX AWARD" by Ashraf Safdar.

Mr Norman received this prestigious award from our President Mr. S. R. Nathan, by monitoring the movements of the endangered shark.

The whale shark has a migratory range of 13,000 km and can dive to 980 metres, can Kerzner build an aquarium to suit their requirements?

Perhaps the A.V.A. would like to comment about the legal implication of keeping an endangered species in a captive environment?

Perhaps also Kerzner would like to make their scientific research on the whale shark public so that marine experts can make comments on these findings.

The Singapore Government has always worked towards being a caring and sophisticated society and keeping a magnificent fish that needs both space and depth hardly augurs well with the international worldwide image we want to project.

Instead of a whaleshark in captivity, how about a sunken ship as an artificial reef so that our young can learn first hand about corals etc and how they support marine life. I am sure this would be a first worldwide as only divers have seen how these structures support marine biodiversity.

Let's abandon this high risk (and perhaps illegal) project and teach something positive to our youngsters instead of the negative lesson that money can buy everything even endangered mammals, fish and animals.
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