Re: in Russia .....
Yes, as i've said we have "dolphinarium" even in my city (Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation), few km away from me. Moreover, it was place where i first meet with some captive dolphins. It was in 2003 ... after this - i broke a lot of hearts (and friendship ties!) by aggressively talking about all this. Why aggressively? Because i saw negative side of the coin with my own eyes, at the same time official ideology from dolphinarium was "everything is damn good here". Difference betwen reality and specially-created illusion was too much for me, at the end.
It is sounds strange, but my "enemy" (branch of Utrish Dolphinarium , Ltd) actually was divided last year by some unwanted "criminals", all this resulted in at least three dead dolphins in Moscow, heavy mass-media war between owners, and move close to surface some very interesting and sometimes sensitive (if true) information ....
I'm trying to do my part of fight, but often it ends up like ....we come to dolphinarium, meet with guard, and go away with nearly useless phone number and nothing more ...So, you can call me "most useless activist"!
basically, all this "dolphins in captivity" stuff broke my life into two parts - before (<2002) and after (from 2003 up to today). You can track me from
http://orcinus.ru/club/members.asp?55, in the beginning i was seen mostly on Russian-speaking sites, then moved into Big Internet. Look for ÀÃägåég, Andrew_R, AndrewR ....
But all this internet tail not saving dolphins i know from their fate ...I tried to meet with people in person, discuss The Problem in private, but probably i just bad communicator, in sense i really fast heat up on issue, so people prefer to stay away ... may be because i often ask too much from them.
I dislike big crowds, may be people sense this somehow, too. I know how bad situation is for captive dolphins, but for now i hardly able to write long letters .. sometime i "fire away" another portion of links, they of course in English, half people here just can't read them properly, other nearly half busy with something else ...
Everything i can say was said 100-times before, everything was twisted and turned around long before me even come close to all this. But hopefully i still have some steam? Time will tell .... us. (i definitely have some very big pdf to read and re-write as copyable text... hopefully it will make good point in some letters i planning to send, because our vet officials refuse to even inspecting dolphinarium, let alone anything more serious action! Despite fotos clearly showing dolphin (Bayan) with some skin problems and another dolphin kept separate during show time (Neon, only one who was born in this pool, soon to be 5 years old) ... They trying to convince me everything is OK - even if it was me who printed and corrected veterinary book, currently used in all dolphinariums .. No, i'm far from have veterinary knowledge, but i definitely have reasons to worry about dolphin's health!)
And at the end .. some people may find me too ... open (or fearless). This is true, if you have sensitive info and not sure - don't give it to me, simply because i can use it in very strange ways. Be warned ...
