Contents   >   Previous Page   |   Next Page

5. THE GLOBAL INDUSTRY

5.10   Bruno Lienhardt & the IDS (cont'd)

Lienhardt Steals His Own Dolphins

Unfortunately for its already battered reputation, the IDS was involved in yet another scandal in 1984 which was splashed across the front page of Switzerland's tabloid rag, Blick. Two of Lienhardt's dolphins, Nemo and Girl, both originally from Guatemala and later to be abandoned in a hotel swimming pool in Cairo, were, for several years, rented out to the Ocean World Aquarium at the Lido Camaiore on the outskirts of Viareggio, Italy. At some point during 1984, a heated dispute broke out over contractual obligations, with Lienhardt alleging that he had "never seen a cent" of the 45% of ticket sales he should have received, and the management of the Aquarium retorting that they had "never seen a lira" in compensation for food and care of the dolphins. "The dolphinarium itself may have been one of the best in Europe," contends Heidi Bader with unabashed gall, "but because of some kind of disagreement our dolphins were placed in the small holding tank. When Mr Lienhardt complained, the management told him that they had to be removed from the main pool because it required repair. However, no repairs were done and so Mr Lienhardt became suspicious and concerned about the fate of his animals." More likely however, was that Lienhardt had become concerned about the fate of his wallet. And so on the night of 14 November 1984, the IDS president and five helpers, intent upon "rescuing" the dolphins, broke-into the Aquarium. Drugging two watchdogs with Valium, they lifted the dolphins onto stretchers and carried them to a waiting car. "Six hours later we were in Switzerland - an hour before police blocked the border," Lienhardt boasted.

"When I demanded the return of the customs papers for the dolphins, the Italians refused to give them to me," the IDS president claimed later. But how was it that the dolphins could enter Switzerland without such papers? Quite simply because they are regarded as circus animals. Explains Dr Peter Dollinger of the Federal Veterinary Office in Berne: "The animals were declared at the Swiss border and we issued an import license for them. We did not request an Italian re-export certificate under CITES because there's a special provision in the Convention which provides for the transport of circus animals. And the animals concerned had CITES documents but issued in Belgium. For this reason we decided not to consider them as Italian animals."

At about the same time, Lienhardt also received temporary import papers for three other dolphins, Girl, Missy and Niki, veterans of IDS shows at Walibi and the Moulin Rouge. All five animals were subsequently placed in Conny Gasser's new dolphinarium at Lipperswil, though it would not be long before yet another wrangle over contracts and "gentlemen's agreements" would erupt. Lienhardt had promised both Gasser and the trusting Federal authorities that the dolphins would be in Switzerland for no more than three months. Declared Dr Peter Dollinger: "Lienhardt's dolphins were only accepted for temporary importation. They will be moved this year to a municipal dolphinarium which Mr Lienhardt will be leasing in the South of France." That was in 1985, but by 1988 the temporary dolphins were becoming embarrassingly permanent. Indeed, that dolphinarium - at Cap d'Agde - was entirely fictitious and, much to the embarrassment of the Federal Veterinary Office and the annoyance of Gasser, the "temporary" dolphins remained at Connyland for three years, during which time two - Niki and Missy - died. Says Debbie Steele: "Lienhardt's been talking about his dolphinarium in the south of France for years. According to him it's been under construction since 1981, and I think that's how he gets through half the laws. He applies for a temporary import for two dolphins and says, 'my new dolphinarium isn't quite ready yet'."

Complacent Bureaucracies

In recent years, increasingly critical media coverage has sometimes had the bizarre effect of government officials protecting the reputations of the dolphin dealers in order to vindicate their own professional credibility. Despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary, Dr. Peter Dollinger for example, asserts that "there are no dolphin dealers living in Switzerland, and I can't imagine there are any in Europe at all." While Prof. Giorgio Pilleri is regarded as someone who 'makes waves' and is therefore denigrated as a "so-called dolphin expert", Lienhardt's reputation on the other hand appears almost saintly. Asked whether Bruno Lienhardt - who describes himself as a "business manager" - is involved in the trade in dolphins, Dr Dollinger replied, "no, certainly not. He has purchased a few animals - apparently legally - but he's not dealing with them, he's performing." The term "apparently legally" may be regarded as a glossing over of the facts. Captured off Guatemala and Mexico, Girl and Nemo began their existence in captivity under a cloud of legal uncertainty, imported without permits into Belgium in 1981. Prior to 1984, when Belgium at last joined CITES, the country was notorious as a conduit for animal-dealing supplies destined for other European countries.

Dollinger seems to show the same kind of favouritism towards Conny Gasser. In 1985, he actively supported Gasser's application to the US authorities for permission to capture four additional dolphins for Connyland. The application, which Dollinger "reviewed and corrected where necessary" included false statements and diagrams regarding the size of the holding pool. The pool was both described and depicted as being "20 feet in length and 20 feet in width" which might just conceivably be accurate if one completes, with a vivid imagination, a narrow L-shaped tank into a square. The application also included the deceptive declaration that there had been "no mortalities" at Connyland - without mentioning that the complex had only just opened. Dollinger also saw fit to include a glossy magazine article praising the new dolphinarium. In fact, as I discovered from editorial staff at the magazine, the dolphins' infected wounds and gashes had been blotted out by an overzealous graphic artist for "aesthetic reasons". Furthermore, neither Gasser nor Dollinger saw fit to reveal any information about the tragic death of Lienhardt's dolphin Niki, which up until November 1984 was being cared for at Connyland.

Even by the middle of 1985, official records continued to reveal that the IDS owned five dolphins in Switzerland and it actually required a three day investigation to discover the fate of Niki, the missing dolphin, a female aged only five years whose life appears to have been a sad one since the day Bruno Lienhardt had her captured off the coast of Mexico and confined her to a tank in the Moulin Rouge. The Cantonal Veterinary Office in Frauenfeld is responsible for the implementation of animal welfare regulations at Connyland, yet incredibly their response to the apparent discrepancy was that "we don't know where the fifth dolphin is. You must ask Connyland. This is all the information we have." Predictably, the IDS denied its very existence, as did Connyland. Information on the fate of the fifth dolphin was finally received from an impeccable source who, for fear of repercussions, wished to remain anonymous. She revealed that the dolphin had died in November 1984 after catching pneumonia, partly as a result of "being torn to pieces by other dolphins in the pool at Connyland - she was full of bites and gashes - something that hardly ever happens with dolphins unless there is great stress caused by their confinement." When finally confronted with details of the dolphin's death, Heidi Bader claimed that "it had always been a weak dolphin" but the truth of the matter is that she did not die of natural causes, perhaps explaining why Bruno Lienhardt refused permission for the autopsy report to be released. On 25 November 1984 her emaciated and mutilated body was driven to the Cantonal Veterinary Hospital in Zürich whose pathologists declared that the dolphin was in appalling health, "suffering from acute fibrosis of the lung, acute dermatitis, and wounds caused by bites to the genital region." More mysterious however was that the autopsy specifically mentioned wounds on the dolphin's flippers, tail and nose "not consistent with an attack from another dolphin." The pathologist I spoke with was "not willing to speculate on the cause of those wounds."

Abandoned in Cairo and Vienna

Lienhardt's three surviving dolphins were rapidly becoming undesirables at Connyland, not to mention a particularly knotty predicament for the Federal Veterinary Office. Two of the animals, Leo and Nemo, had been consigned to a tiny holding tank because Conny Gasser feared that Lienhardt would charge him performance fees if he allowed them to join his own dolphins in the main pool. But evidently to avoid the illegality of overcrowding the holding tank, Gasser felt obliged to keep Lienhardt's third dolphin, Girl, in the main pool, where it joined in performances "of its own free will." Predictably, Lienhardt suspected that he was being cheated and after heated arguments broke out between the two dolphin dealers, an abashed Dr Peter Dollinger once again intervened, arranging temporary asylum for Leo and Nemo at Knie's Kinderzoo in Rapperswil. It was hardly an ideal solution however. For six months, the animals shared the cramped pool with Knie's three American dolphins, resulting in a technical breach of space requirements under both under US and Swiss law. "We were glad to be rid of them," says Chris Krenger, Knie's Public Relations Officer. "Our pool was too small for all of these animals. They didn't get along with our own three dolphins and they disturbed the whole show."

By October 1988, Lienhardt was once again hitting the headlines, when it became apparent that his long-suffering dolphins, Nemo and Leo, had been abandoned in the swimming pool of the 5-star Hotel Meridien, situated on the banks of the river Nile in Cairo. For several months, no experienced trainer had been on hand to feed and care for the animals, and the hotel, which wanted to give its 35m diameter pool back to its guests, was becoming increasingly desperate to be rid of the animals. By comparison, the third surviving dolphin, Girl, had for six months been provided with decidedly down-market accommodation - an unheated open-air pool just 12m in diameter at Safaripark in Gänserndorf near Vienna. With winter weather imminent, the animal's life was threatened by freezing temperatures.

For once, the plight of the three dolphins lucidly revealed the inner workings of the cetacean entertainment industry, its greed, cynicism and callousness, this time with no convenient public relations veil. Bruno Lienhardt had abandoned his dolphins not because he suddenly had no money to feed them, but because they had become pawns in yet another bizarre legal wrangle over contracts. Gambling with the animals' failing health was simply part of Lienhardt's systematic plan to force the two establishments to meet his demands and pay-up.

It was on 4 November 1987 that Nemo and Leo, together with two IDS sea lions, arrived at Cairo's Hotel Meridien, where they were put in the main swimming pool to entertain guests. Cutting costs, the dolphins had quite simply been put in the baggage hold of the aircraft bound for Cairo, and categorised as "unaccompanied freight." They arrived with wounds which, even a year later, had failed to heal. The opening ceremony for the show, with free champagne and canapés all round, was attended by the creme de la creme of Egyptian society, including the wife of President Hosni Mubarak. But all too soon the Meridien saw a successful publicity stunt turn into a public relations nightmare. "We were initially supposed to have a dolphin show for 18 months," hotel Manager Edouard Speck told me, "but we cancelled the contract after only 6 months because the dolphins were not up to international show performance standards." No less than five IDS-employed trainers arrived on the scene to manage the show during those six months, declares Speck. "None of them seemed particularly competent either in training or caring for the animals. One of the sea lions even died because it swallowed a plastic ball due to lack of supervision. The remaining sea-lion was confiscated and is now kept in Cairo zoo." By all accounts, as soon as the Meridien abrogated its agreement with the IDS, Lienhardt disappeared, leaving the dolphins to be fed and cared for by one of the Meridien's bellhops. Although a vet from Cairo zoo visited the animals once a week, he possessed no professional experience in treating dolphins. "We had no news from Lienhardt for four months," declared Speck. "He showed up sometimes but never did anything about the dolphins." Indeed, Lienhardt apparently had other reasons to stay in the background: he was also being sought for non-payment of a three thousand pound bill for air-freighting his two sea-lions from Germany to Cairo.

Although Meridien had already announced that it was in the process of taking court action to evict the dolphins, because of red-tape and a clogged judicial system the hotel was facing the prospect of having to wait "anything from one month to several years" before the case even came before a judge. "The most important thing for us is that these dolphins are out by next summer," declared Speck. "We lost the whole summer season this year. Not only was there no dolphin show but our guests were also prevented from using our main swimming pool." In their legal action, Meridien was claiming over 22,000 pounds in lost admission fees to the hotel pool, compensation of over a thousand pounds a month for feeding the dolphins, and payment of a drinks bill of 3000 pounds which Lienhardt had apparently run up in six months at the hotel bar. But lurking in the shadows, Lienhardt was steadfastly resisting any attempt to move or confiscate his dolphins. "Even though he has nowhere to put them," protested Speck, "he's still demanding a large sum of money from us in order to take them away." Indeed, Lienhardt was counter-suing the hotel for breach of contract, demanding 56,000 pounds in lost earnings.

By this time several conservation organizations were hatching plans to rescue the dolphins held hostage in Cairo and Vienna, including Virginia McKenna's Zoo Check, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan's Bellerive Foundation and TRAFFIC, a WWF-affiliated organisation which monitors the international trade in endangered species. When it was realised that the dolphin stranded in Vienna's Safaripark was threatened by sub-zero temperatures, Bellerive and TRAFFIC encouraged the authorities to confiscate the dolphin. "I'm somewhere between the devil and the deep blue sea," moaned Edwin Wiesinger, owner of Safaripark. "I've got this dolphin here and it costs me a lot of money every day to feed and care for. I know I won't get the money from Lienhardt but on the other hand if the dolphin should die because it's getting colder now and we've got it out in the open, for one thing the public will be onto me - 'why doesn't he take care of his animals' - and on the other hand Lienhardt will come and say, 'well this dolphin is worth $30,000 and you let it die.' I don't know what to do, and I don't know where to get hold of Lienhardt. The animal should have been out of our pool by the end of September. Now it's nearing the end of October and the animal is still here." Birgit Schacht of TRAFFIC in Vienna however, remained distinctly unimpressed by Wiesinger's sudden scruples and pangs of contrition: "We have had very bad experiences with Safaripark. We know that on many occasions Wiesinger buys animals and then has no money to feed them. He then takes out large advertisements in the newspapers to play on the public's sympathy to raise funds. He doesn't care well for the animals - they are kept under bad conditions." Indeed, it seemed as though Wiesinger was loathe to heat the pool to prevent it freezing over simply because of the costs involved. But within days of intervening in the case, TRAFFIC, under the expert guidance of Dr. Daniel Slama, had forced Wiesinger to arrange some temporary comfort for the abandoned dolphin. "Safaripark is now heating the pool," Dr. Slama declared. "If they stop they will be sued immediately for breaking Austria's animal welfare laws." And yet no one quite realised, at this juncture, just how complex and tangled the whole problem was to become. Edwin Wiesinger and Conny Gasser, it turned out, were both expecting imminent litigation with the IDS, and the reasons for these legal scuffles seemed to present the international dolphin trade in an even more grotesque light. Safaripark had declined to pay Lienhardt for his dolphin show because "Girl", regarded by the IDS as "one of the best show trained dolphins in Europe, capable of over 30 different tricks", consistently refused to perform. "In the beginning it didn't work at all," complained Wiesinger. "It didn't even want to eat. This was simply the behaviour of a dolphin that hasn't been trained." To Lienhardt, there was only one explanation for this: Conny Gasser had obviously "switched dolphins", substituting one of his own poor quality animals for "Girl," the star of his travelling show. Predictably, Gasser vehemently denied the allegation that he had stolen Lienhardt's "Girl". And who would have imagined that Gasser, even when flustered, would parrot the sayings of Pilleri in order to substantiate his innocence? "A gregarious animal like that you can't put alone in a pool. Obviously it doesn't work because that is more or less like solitary confinement." Gasser also declared that he was counter-suing Lienhardt for the costs of maintaining the three dolphins at Connyland for three years, despite an agreement that they would only stay for three months pending transfer to the fictional dolphinarium at Cap d'Agde. With unabashed audacity Gasser also added that Lienhardt "is known the world over for using the animals to further his own interests. He realises that most people will take pity on a dolphin and feed it in his absence."

Despite repeated attempts, no response to this accusatory shooting spree was received either from Lienhardt, his fellow-directors of the IDS, or his lawyers in Zürich. Nor could any of them provide Lienhardt's current address or telephone number. First of all, I tried Dr. Horst Marxer's postbox enterprise in Vaduz where the IDS is officially registered as a Liechtenstein company, enjoying tax concessions and much-favoured anonymity. Marxer and Heidi Bader share the dubious privilege of being on the board of directors of the IDS, which, as they have discovered through bitter experience, can become something of a burden when their boss falls victim of yet another legal dispute or media blitz. When asked to explain Lienhardt's conduct in abandoning his dolphins, a conspicuously nervous Dr Marxer replied: "I know nothing about these problems. I have had no contact with Mr Lienhardt for several weeks. Even though I am a member of the board of directors, it's not my mistake what's happening with these dolphins. I like animals too and I'm not very interested to be the big bad guy in the newspapers." Marxer, claiming as alibi the legal framework and code of ethics which govern the operations of any Liechtenstein postbox company, went on to insist that he had "nothing to do with the dolphins but only the management of the IDS. The IDS is a Liechtenstein company - it's registered here - and the law says there must be a Liechtenstein member on the board of directors."

From Lienhardt's lawyers in Zürich, Prof. Giger & Dr. Simmen, came the terse statement that "we are not authorised to give any answers by telephone. Lienhardt contacts us once every few weeks but we don't know his exact whereabouts." However, the IDS's so-called "correspondence secretary", Hugo Kälin, under siege in Lienhardt's house in Einsiedeln, denied that his boss had "disappeared". Although guarded and reticent, Kälin confirmed that the IDS was in the process of taking legal action against Conny Gasser, claiming that his old comrade-in-arms, French dolphin vivisector Prof. René Guy Busnel, had provided evidence that the dolphin at Safaripark was not Girl. "This is definitely not Bruno Lienhardt's dolphin," insisted Kälin. "Gasser has deliberately given him the wrong dolphin. Bruno sent Professor Busnel photos of the flippers of the two dolphins - Girl and the one now in Vienna - and the Professor has replied that these are definitely two different dolphins. I know Mr Lienhardt very well and I can tell you that in this affair he's playing with open cards - no dirty business or anything like that." When asked why Lienhardt did not intervene to protect the dolphin against freezing temperatures in Vienna, Kälin replied tersely: "This is Gasser's problem because this is Gasser's dolphin. It must go back to Connyland - then there will be no risk to the animal. Gasser has to send the real dolphin - Girl - to Mr Lienhardt." Conny Gasser however, adamantly refused to accept the Vienna dolphin, and both the Swiss and German authorities made it known in early November that they would allow no Lienhardt-owned dolphins to be imported into their countries. According to Dr Slama of TRAFFIC, "the Austrian authorities will probably give Lienhardt a deadline of two weeks to sort out the problem. If the dolphin is still here then, it will be confiscated and sent to Nürnberg Zoo." Just before the confiscation deadline was reached however, Conny Gasser, despite his previously resolute refusals to even contemplate the possibility, made it known that he would accept Lienhardt's dolphin after all. This turn of events was inexplicable, though one can probably surmise that it was due to some furtive back-room solution hammered out between their respective lawyers. The Vienna dolphin - whatever its true identity - was collected by truck from Safariland in November and driven off on its long journey back to Connyland.

In the meantime, events in Egypt were reaching a climax, with the world's media circus converging on the Hotel Meridien and almost producing greater worldwide publicity for the stranded dolphins than that afforded to the PLO's declaration in Algiers of the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Centre stage was claimed by Air France's Meridien Hotel which had orchestrated the pre-emptive media blitz to portray not only the dolphins but also themselves as the innocent victims of Lienhardt's latest escapade. For the sake of pragmatism and the international press corps' requirement to have only one villain per dispatch, almost nothing was said of the Hotel's foolishness and avarice in ordering the dolphin show in the first place.

On 5 November, just as editors were beginning to consign updates on the story to filler paragraphs on the back page, Doug Cartlidge and Debbie Steele flew out to Egypt on a rescue mission on behalf of Zoo Check. The media's response was swift, with television crews even flying in from as far away as America and Japan. "Someone has got to take responsibility," Cartlidge declared. "These animals should be swimming in the sea where they belong, not in a featureless concrete tank." Zoo Check's objective - which set alarm bells ringing throughout the industry - was to gradually rehabilitate the dolphins and eventually release them into the Red Sea. That plan however was soon shelved by the sheer necessity of keeping the ailing dolphins alive. Cartlidge found Leo and Nemo aimlessly circling the pool, sickly and listless, subsisting on a diet of frozen Nile sardines. The pool, being designed for human bathers who do not normally eat and excrete when they swim, was becoming increasingly fouled due to poor filtration. The putrefying condition of the water aggravated the dolphins' wounds that had been sustained during transportation, and both were found to have ulcers of the cornea. According to some reports, the dolphins were only being provided with 3kg of fish per day, even though their average requirement is around 8kg. Perhaps, as the dolphins were no longer earning their keep, the Hotel was eager to cut costs?

Although nowhere to be found, evidently Bruno Lienhardt was hardly whiling away the time in Cairo, as evidenced by two intriguing telegrams intercepted from Saudi Arabia. One of these cables, originating from Jeddah and signed 'Imad al Aboud' stated: "Attention Mr Bruno. Please refer to Mr. Omar Bararman, Saudi Consulate, and Mr Omar will provide you with a visa for Saudi Arabia." A second telegram read: "Pool and facilities almost ready." With tension mounting, it appeared that a "contract" had been put out on Cartlidge's life should he attempt to have the dolphins removed from the Hotel Meridien. Abdul Nasser, the bellhop turned dolphin trainer, realised that Cartlidge was being constantly shadowed by a skulking and furtive individual known only as 'Mohammed'. Making further enquiries, he discovered that a sum of 1000 Egyptian pounds had been offered to report on Cartlidge's activities. If it seemed as though the Zoo Check consultant would attempt to move the dolphins, 'Mohammed' was to go to a Cairo circus and alert two 'heavies' who would 'take care of him', possibly for good. As this information came to light, Mohammed was promptly apprehended by Hotel security, and was later detained by the police. Says Cartlidge: "The police told me I was a very important man in Egypt. They said it usually cost 400 to 500 pounds to kill a man there."

Meanwhile, the incandescent media spotlight also encouraged the dolphin industry's most devout hypocrites to crawl out of the woodwork. While Gasser, Wiesinger, and Lienhardt were all contending for the title of wronged animal lover of the year, the godfathers of the industry were holding midnight seances to plot an urgent and spectacular action in damage control. There were few qualms about throwing one of their own kind to the dogs. After all, Lienhardt's conduct had already proved expensive to the industry, not only in terms of bad publicity and the harsher laws that were introduced in France following the closure of the Moulin Rouge revue, but also in the IDS president's shameless habit of stinging his own business partners. The ongoing scandal in Cairo, splashed across the newspapers of the world, was viewed as a serious threat to the dolphin entertainment industry as a whole. On top of that, an upstart former whale and dolphin trainer, backed by a meddling organisation of bleeding hearts, was actually planning to release the dolphins into the wild. Although a similar operation had been mounted in 1987 by the American organisation ORCA, with a pair of dolphins being successfully released after seven years in captivity, worldwide media coverage of Leo and Nemo being given their freedom would be a precedent-setting event with damaging implications for the industry. It would prove to the public that captive dolphins can be re-introduced into the wild and survive, despite the industry's ritual denials. A major rescue operation was called for - as much for the industry's battered image as for the dolphins themselves - spearheaded by Mike Riddell of Antibes Marineland and celebrity vet David Taylor. Lienhardt would be branded as a black sheep, the disreputable exception which proves the irreproachable rule. It was thus that after seventeen years of silence regarding Lienhardt's conduct, Mike Riddell, as secretary of the EAAM, declared to the press that "most respectable dolphinariums would like to see Lienhardt put out of business. . . We have worked hard to get rid of him from our profession." Furthermore, in a gesture of boundless compassion, Riddell offered sanctuary for the stranded dolphins: Marineland's "purpose-built hospital pool" would be readied to receive the animals and nurse them back to health. Its vet, none other than EAAM President David Taylor, would be dispatched to Cairo immediately to treat the ailing dolphins. Though the Riddell-Taylor brain-child was sure to steal the limelight on behalf of the dolphin industry and therefore play right into its hands, for Zoo Check there was no other option but to accept the ostensibly magnanimous offer.

Taylor's veterinary checks revealed that Nemo was near to death with pneumonia in the left lung and an intestinal infection contracted from eating rotten fish. Both dolphins were suffering from scars caused by careless transportation, and skin problems attributed to poor water quality. Tourists had also thrown potentially lethal objects into the pool, including bottles, knives, forks, coins, and even batteries. Taylor declared that it was the first time that the dolphins had been seen by a marine vet for seven years - though why they had not been examined at Connyland, where Taylor is actually a consultant vet, was not explained.

Lured by the imminent departure of his dolphins, Bruno Lienhardt made one of his rare cameo appearances at the Hotel Meridien, protesting his innocence to the assembled press corps. Interviewed by a Sunday Times reporter, he angrily refuted Meridien's accusations that Leo and Nemo were not up to international dressage standards, retorting that "the audiences loved the show". He also denied that he had abandoned the animals. "I was here more than 50% of the time," he claimed. "Now I come every two days to look at my dolphins from the terrace, but I won't go close to the pool because I would be blamed if anything happened to the dolphins." Even the ugly, if sometimes ludicrous spectacle of the European dolphin dealers vying with each other for the role of "best animal lover" had not quite come to an end. Lienhardt went on to say that he originally decided to work with dolphins after seeing and becoming enthralled by the film Flipper. "The greatest pleasure I get," he solemnly declared, "is to see the expressions on the faces of the children when they watch the dolphins perform."

Following sustained international appeals to the Egyptian government, on 17 November Doug Cartlidge was informed by the Vice President that permission had been granted for the dolphins to leave the country. This decision had been reached not through confiscation which would have entailed time-consuming legal procedures, but a 'place of safety order' triggered by increasingly urgent humanitarian concerns for Leo and Nemo's deteriorating health. The dolphins would still belong to Lienhardt, but he would have to fight his way through the courts to reclaim them. An Air France cargo plane flying from Rwanda would be specially diverted to pick up the dolphins and transport them to Marseilles. By this time, the pool had been cordoned off because of the dolphins' new tendency to bite curious onlookers - even members of the press. Not surprisingly, it seemed as though they were well and truly fed up with their terrestrial brothers and sisters.

Leo and Nemo were flown out of Egypt on 24 November. Within hours of their departure, a Cairo court granted an injunction to prevent their removal from Egyptian soil but this was too late for Lienhardt, despite his irate protests that the dolphins had been "kidnapped". With the press suitably primed for the happy ending their editors so fervently desired, upon arrival at Marseilles, the dolphins were transferred to two waiting ambulances, and, with an escort of police outriders, were rushed to Antibes Marineland, an hour's drive away. After being nursed back to health in the "hospital pool", declared Riddell, Leo and Nemo would make the acquaintance of Marineland's own dolphins - five females and one male.

It is not the first time that Bruno "Houdini" Lienhardt has confounded predictions of his imminent demise in the dolphin business. Insisted his loyal comrade, Hugo Kälin, at the height of the Cairo and Vienna debacle: "I know that Mr. Lienhardt has places to put the dolphins - he's also planning a new dolphinarium but I don't know if I can comment on that." In any event, rumours within the industry suggested that the IDS president would soon embark on another dolphin-catching operation in Indonesia or Guatemala. Even David Taylor had to admit, perhaps as image-insurance for the future, that "unfortunately, I have a terrible feeling that this practice will not end, just move to countries less in the public eye." Back in the Cairo bars which he frequented, Lienhardt was even heard to boast that he already had other dolphins in his possession which he was having trained for his new show.

At Antibes, David Taylor declared: "We fully expect him to turn up any day with a lawyer or heavies, saying he wants his dolphins back. Lienhardt is bad news for dolphins and for the zoological world. The man is completely irresponsible." There was also the haunting possibility that Lienhardt would take legal measures to reclaim Nemo and Leo, and sure enough, several months later, it was learnt that Lienhardt had initiated court proceedings in France, not with the intention of shipping the animals to some new dolphinarium on the Persian Gulf, but to yet another hotel swimming pool in Saudi Arabia. Lienhardt's plans were blocked, however, when the dolphins were made a ward of court pending legal proceedings in Egypt. By April 1989, the IDS president was suing Marineland for 300,000 pounds in damages as well as the return of the dolphins. Declared Mike Riddell: "He is trying to get the dolphins back, and is also claiming a share of the proceeds he says we will have made from having them there."

By aggressively resisting such moves, an ingenious Marineland was also jockeying for position in any future legal claim to the animals. Bill Travers, Zoo Check's co-founder, stated that the organisation welcomed Marineland's involvement, but regarded Leo and Nemo's stay at Antibes as only temporary. "Leo and Nemo have suffered enough," he said. "Let us make the final gesture and give them their liberty. We must give them a chance to be wild and free again." Suitable sites for their planned release were being investigated, the most favoured areas under consideration being along the north-west Atlantic coast of Spain. "We are opposed to dolphinariums," Travers continued. "We feel there is no justification for them as they exist at present. We would like to see them converted to rescue centres and do what Marineland is doing in this case - nursing sick animals back to health." No wonder then, that the industry had become alarmed at the prospects of a successful dolphin release, or that Mike Riddell had made it known that he would fight vigorously any attempt to wrest control of the dolphins away from Marineland. There were suddenly rumours that the "marine zoo" was desperate for male dolphins in order to consummate Roland de la Poype's age-old dream of whale-breeding, and after receiving a windfall in the form of two free dolphins worth in excess of $60,000, had no intention of letting them slip through his fingers.

Indeed, Leo and Nemo were never released into the wild. Instead, the ill-fated dolphins were destined to spend over a year in their "hospital pool" at Antibes, half the size of the hotel swimming pool they were actually rescued from. Complained Doug Cartlidge: "Chlorination was carried out by hand. I observed staff walking around the pool pouring chlorine from a watering can directly into the water. This is against all recommendations contained in the present standards for keeping cetacea. . . During my visit I noted and expressed concern over the hanging behaviour which is developing in Nemo, the animal just lying motionless in the water. Prolonged hanging is a sign of depression and boredom. In this concrete tomb, they are worse off than they were in Cairo. If I had known that they were going to spend a year in a 15 metre by 10 metre pool I would never have agreed to them going to Marineland." Though Cartlidge had arranged for the dolphins to be part of a rehabilitation and release programme in the USA, both Taylor and Riddell insisted that they were still too ill to travel, and that their presence in the hospital pool was essential to facilitate constant medical attention. They also rejected any idea of an independent vet inspecting the animals. A long journey would be "tantamount to murder," Riddell was quoted as saying.

Contents   >   Previous Page   |   Next Page