Thursday, September 2, 2010

A whale shark kept in captivity at the Atlantis hotel on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah has been released.

The five-star resort said the four-metre long female was set free this morning after over 17 months on display in its aquarium but would not comment on why the creature was returned to the wild or its condition.

Atlantis has refused to comment on the whale shark throughout its time in captivity but today said in a statement that its release had taken “several months of planning”.

Vice president of the resort’s marine engineering department, Steve Kaiser said: “We will continue to track her progress through a tagging program co-developed with The Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida. This will give us the opportunity to continue to learn from her and share that research within the whale shark community.”

The decision was welcomed by animal rights’ activists and conservationists around the world who had campaigned for the whale shark’s release.
 
Dubai-based marine expert Jonathan Ali Khan said he was pleased the creature was back in the wild but concerned about its welfare while the motivation for the decision remains a mystery.

“It’s great news and a big relief for everyone,” he said. “But there are concerns about her. As far as I can see, there are only two reasons Atlantis would ever release her. One would be that she got too big for the tank and the second would be if she was not doing very – rather than die in the tank, they would release her and leave her to her own devices. I know that she was not too big for the tank.”

Khan, who runs the Shark Quest Arabia research programme, says it is now vital that Atlantis shares the tagging information with other experts.

The whale shark’s capture in August 2008 sparked outrage across the globe. American actress Pamela Anderson was among celebrity lobbyists who branded its capture cruel and pushed for its release.  However, Atlantis said all its marine life is cared for to the highest standard and that valuable research has been carried out while the creature was in captivity.