Posted by: Editor on Jan 17, 2007 – 11:08 AM
newsandinfo One year after their departure, the dolphins of the Marine Life Oceanarium have met with a mixed fate.
Tessie, the 31-year-old dolphin once left behind without her pod mates in Florida, died after a long illness in the Bahamas about a week ago.
The other 16 are healthy and swimming along in their new confines at Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, said Frank Murru, chief marine officer for Kerzner International, which owns the resort.
“All of them are doing very well,” Murru said after returning from a tour of a large facility being built for them.
“The whole facility is supposed to be done sometime in May,” he said. “They live in their own social groups. We don’t really separate the dolphins into their own pools. The groups that they live in have a series of pools that they call home.”
Even though Marine Animal Productions, which owned the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport’s harbor, is in litigation with one of its former partners, Dr. Mobi Solangi, there are still several possibilities for a new aquarium to be built.
Actually, there is already a dolphin in Gulfport. Cajun, a 2-year-old male, is swimming around an inflatable pool in a plastic greenhouse on the industrial canal in Gulfport.
Cajun is being rehabilitated by members of Solangi’s Institute for Marine Mammal Studies after the juvenile dolphin’s mother died in Louisiana.
Don Jacobs, chairman of the board for Marine Life, did not say there were specific plans in the works to replace the Oceanarium, but did say they supported the creation of a facility somewhere in Jones Park.
Solangi, meanwhile, said he does not plan to wait for the outcome of the litigation with MAP to push for new facilities.
Once the $3 million, 5-acre educational and veterinary facility for IMMS is completed, Solangi said he plans to work toward something that is more similar to the Oceanarium.
“Our plan, even before the hurricane, was to develop a new facility,” said Solangi, adding the 50-year-old Oceanarium meant a lot to a lot of people, as did the dolphins. “It is an important part of our community.”
The National Marine Fisheries Service is helping fund the facility.
Solangi also said he hopes to put more effort into having a public facility like the Marine Life Oceanarium return somewhere in or near Gulfport to “put the fun back in learning” about marine animals.
By Joshua Norman
The Sun Herald
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