THE TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS NEEDS YOUR HELP!!

Today we are contacting you to ask for any kind of help we can receive from the Born Free Foundation regarding what is now a most urgent situation in the Turks and Caicos. We are desperately looking for help from the Born Free Foundation to help us in the Turks and Caicos fight a proposal from Dolphin Cove, a Jamaican company, to open two 'swim with a dolphin' facilities here. I think it would help if I gave you some history of our island, in particular the role that Born Free (then Zoocheck) played in the past. Virginia McKenna and Will Travers should take particular interest in this since they were instrumental in freeing 3 of the last dolphins to be held in captivity in the UKRocky, Missy and Silver. The Turks and Caicos hosted the "Into the Blue" project at TCI Conch Farm. The rehabilitation effort was supported by all the residents in Providenciales, all the ministers in the government at that time and the Tourist Board who was promoting our slogan "Beautiful by Nature". Shortly after the release of the dolphins we enacted legislation to protect all of our marine mammals, especially JoJo, a wild dolphin who has been interacting with humans for over 35 years. He was declared a National Treasure in 1992 and has been the hood ornament for the Tourist Board's marketing campaign, mostly geared toward high end tourism. This legislation is very short and general but we felt no one could get around it. Paragraph (1) reads: "no person shall engage in fishing for, molest or otherwise interfere with any marine mammal" On October 26, 2012 the British Governor, Damian Ric Todd announced he had amended this legislation by adding: (2) The restriction imposed by paragraph (1) shall not prevent the importation of marine mammal into the islands by a person who holds a permit, certificate or other document authorising importation and keeping of marine mammal for the purposes of display, exhibition or performance; and the keeping of marine mammal for the purposes of display, exhibition or performance in accordance with a valid permit,

certificate or other document shall not be considered to be in contravention of paragraph (1).

The Governor unilaterally enacted the change to our Fisheries legislation. Like all other Caribbean countries we are struggling with a shrinking economy and our main source of revenue comes from tourism. Many people are now unemployed in the country and would take any kind of job that came their way. Dolphin Cove is banking on this. 4 separate NGO's have launched a judicial review against the Governor's decision to do this and the case is due to be heard next month. Most people in this country feel that the Governor has the power to do anything he so chooses-we hope to prove this wrong. We are going to require as much publicity and support as possible from other International Animal Welfare groups, especially in the UK, to actively campaign against dolphins in captivity. We all feel quite appalled that being an overseas territory of the UK, a country who put in place such stringent conditions for holding marine mammals, that we would be facing such a situation here. We don't have ANY regulations for keeping marine mammals because we never thought we would need them. Anything you can do in the UK to bring awareness to our situation would help us greatly and we do need help with funding for the legal costs to fight this battle and prevent the importation of captive dolphins into the TCI. Please contact as soon as possible the TCSPCA at tcspca@tciway.tc