WILLEMSTAD - Animal Rights wants the export licenses of the Sea Aquarium's dolphins to be revoked. The case will return to court on June 28. Animal Rights lawyer Bertie Braam confirms this to the Dutch news site NU.cw.
Last week, the judge imposed a penalty of 200,000 guilders per dolphin on Sea Aquarium if the transport continued without a valid permit. According to Braam, the Sea Aquarium already had the permits for the transport from January. The lawyer wants the judge to look into the possibilities of destroying it.
"If it turns out that the permits cannot be maintained, Sea Aquarium will have a big problem, because the dolphins have been illegally transported," Braam told NU.cw. If it turns out that the permits do not hold up, the dolphins may be transported back to Curaçao.
According to Braam, if the dolphins are indeed allowed to be transported back, this will not happen in one day, because otherwise it would be too stressful for the bottlenose dolphins. “The journey will be stressful, but when they are back here in the big lagoon with their friends, their lives will be better. The end of the tunnel is better here than there," he emphasizes.
The dolphins left Curaçao a day after Animal Rights filed a petition with the court. According to Braam a stupid move. “Why didn't they just wait and see? They had the permit for six months, why suddenly transport when you know that a case is coming?", according to the lawyer. “The importance of the dolphins is clearly not paramount.”