ACRES to appeal to Philippine court to prevent 25 dolphins from being sent to RWS

Animal rights group, the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Singapore) or ACRES, is working with its Philippine counterparts to get a Philippine court to reconsider its decision to lift an order to block 25 dolphins from being exported to Singapore's Marine Life Park. 

It filed an appeal with the court on Friday.

The temporary environment protection order, which was lifted on Wednesday, was issued last week to prevent the dolphins, which are kept at Ocean Adventure Park in Subic, from being sent to the marine park in Sentosa. 

The court decided on this on the grounds that doing so would cause irreparable damage to the dolphins. 

ACRES said on Friday that it also wants one of the judges who presided over the case to step down, after she was reported as saying that the dolphins were "pets". 

It's also launching a website to build public support for its campaign to send the dolphins back to their natural habitat in the Solomon Islands. 

It said the public can also send their feedback directly to Resorts World Sentosa, which acquired the dolphins - through an online petition. 

Chief Executive of ACRES Louis Ng proposed that before the dolphins are released back to the wild, they should spend about 20 months getting used to their natural environment.
The dolphins were imported from the Solomon Islands in 2008, 2009, and 2011 and brought to Subic for training while Marine Life Park was under construction.