Whale sharks at Sentosa Resorts World

In case you don't know they want to put whale sharks at the new oceanarium at Sentosa Resorts World. This is expected to be completed in the next year so we have to do something about it soon!

From the Resorts World Sentosa website: "The Marine Life Park is set to be the world’s largest oceanarium, with 700,000 fishes. The oceanarium programme offers guests the chance to admire dolphins up close, or dive with and feed menacing tiger sharks."

You have to question their commitment to conservation simply from this statement.

Whale sharks at Sentosa IR? Bad move, say activists
Resorts World promises 'top-class' care as animal welfare groups raise issue
Ang Yiying, Straits Times 29 Aug 08;

The Singapore Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), the Nature Society of Singapore and the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) had objected publicly to the plan when Resorts World at Sentosa unveiled it in 2006.

Whale sharks can grow to 12m long and possibly up to 20m.

Acres executive director Louis Ng said: “They shouldn’t gamble on the lives of whale sharks.”

...Nature Society of Singapore president Shawn Lum said there was no wide consensus that keeping these whale sharks in captivity was good conservation strategy.

There has been no sign of official disapproval of Resorts World’s move.

Of course no official disapproval lah, come on there's money to be made for the tourism industry. They probably think Singaporeans will just roll over and lay down on this issue like with many others.