Greens slam Hong Kong theme park for importing endangered species
Summary
So what happened in the article was that Ocean Park had started to take endangered animals into there aquarium which is there most popular event. The people at Green Sense ,which is the group saying they have endangered animals, want them to have better protection for endangered species. The aquarium attracts the most people and apparently they have 5000 fish from 400 different species. Some of the fish in the aquarium are bluefin tuna which are critically endangered species. Now some of these fish have already died so now more people are wondering about Ocean's Park conservation role even though they don't really have a good one. Although at the same time this place was already criticized for funding a study into bottle nose dolphins and importing them into new aquariums.
Opinion
My stance on this is that you really shouldn't be taking endangered species for use. I think that may be why they call them Endangered Species but that could be just a guess. Also even though this is a really popular aquarium it needs to get rid of its endangered species and stop funding bad activities.
Questions
If you knew about this place and were in Hong Kong would you go to it?
What would you be doing if you were in charge of this aquarium?
If this place imported more endangered species and still be the most popular theme park, Do you think it would be worthwhile to be shut down?
How would you handle this if you were a worker at this place and cared about animals?
I do not support the endangered species going into the aquarium. If they are endangered they should stay in their natural hibitat so that they can reproduce and not become extinct. I would most definatly NOT go to this aquarium becuase that would support the idea of taking the animals out of their hbitat. If i worked at this park i would talk to the owner or somebody of pawer and make a reasonable statement of why they should be freed. This does not sit well with me because i know that if i were part of an endangered species that i would not want to be taken away from what little i had left. This website speaks out against extiction and is very interesting. http://www.stopextinction.org/work.html
ReplyDeleteThere should be laws against taking the endangered species out of their habitats in China, even if the animals are outside of Chinese waters. I would not go to the park because it would show support as mentioned earlier. I'd also not go because it would be providing the park with more money to transfer more aquatic animals to the aquarium. I think the park should be closed and the animals returned to their habitats as well. This should be done under the provision of a more responsible and trustworthy person than who was put in charge of finding animals for the aquarium. this organization is well known for protecting endangered species, this includes some aquatic animals that may be found in the Hong Kong aquarium: http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/
ReplyDeleteThough I personally feel it is wrong that the aquarium would take such drastic steps to attract customers by making poor decisions in taking in endangered species, alas, there is little myself or others could probably do to stop it from happening. As Stephanie and Marisa mentioned, people could not attend the aquairum, which would show they aren't in support of the aquarium's decisions, other than that there isn't much though. It wouldn't be likely to meet with any of the aquarium owners, and it's not like we could go to China and force them to return the fish. Either way, I personally wouldn't mind to attend the aquarium. Yeah, it's wrong and I'm financially supporting the aquarium to make more bad decisions in the future (potentially through the import of endangered fish), but at the same time, I'm curious to see why this aquarium has been considered so great in the past, and actually get to see what these endangered fish look like in the flesh. Sometimes seeing pictures on google isn't good enough... I'm sorry to say my curiousity has allowed my selfish side to get the better of me in this case, but it's an opportunity that I would take advantage of viewing none the less.
ReplyDeleteIf I personally ran the aquarium, I probably wouldn't have taken endangered species into our aquarium in the first place, as it'd be a big responsibility and the fish would be at risk. If the park continued to import endangered fish, yes, I would say they should be liable for being shut down, as there are called endangered in the first place, as Jacob pointed out. If I were a worker and cared about the animals, I would complain to my supervisors and try to put in a word with the boss, but I'd probably just get fired...
Here's a link to a cool video clip about a prehistoric shark (known as a "Frill Shark") discovered around Japan's coastline and filmed swimming through the water. The Japanese tried to capture and house the shark (similar to the way the aquarium is housing the endangered fish) only to have the shark die in captivity (as some of the endangered fish did):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mneDhOtVEQw
I believe that the aquarium should not hold the endangered species in its facilities because they are less likely to reproduce then if they were in the wildlife/natural habitat. If the aquarium only realized how much life expectancy is being taken away from each species, I would hope that they would release each and every animal. I love animals to an extreme and though I am not very fond of the aquatic animals, I would still not want to attend this aquarium under the thought of knowing I was helping a cause of extinction. If I could do anything to change this aquarium, I would most likely try and get a protest started to help the owner realize the extreme mistakes he is and may potentially be making. The only way that this would not be extremely bad is if the money being made is going toward a fund for the endangered species, but I'm not 100% sure that that is what is happening with the money.
ReplyDelete