By Anthony O. Miller
VISITING British MP Roger Gale yesterday urged President Glafcos Clerides and Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous to save a sea lion that a team of British marine wildlife experts says is starving to death at Ayia Napa Marine Park (ANMP).
Gale, chairman of the Conservative Animal Welfare Group in the House of Commons, was in Cyprus on what he characterised as “mainstream political business.”
But he made sure Clerides, Themistocleous and Veterinary Services Department Director Dr Pavlos Economides were apprised of the sea lion’s condition, as described in a report this weekend by a veterinarian and two marine-biologists from Britain.
Gale, in a statement released to the Cyprus Mail and the British press in London, declared: “We want the animal moved to a more suitable local facility, nursed back to health and released into the wild.”
He acknowledged the claims of the visiting British experts, that the sea lion was “close to death from malnutrition and disease,” and noted that Themistocleous — “who is known to be sympathetic” — had ordered “a team of government veterinary surgeons” to the ANMP to evaluate the sea lion for themselves.
Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said: “President Clerides is planning to respond positively for any necessary measures to be taken for the welfare of any animal on the island, and to make sure that Cyprus complies with international treaties on the matter.”
But Gale is not optimistic that “it will be possible, given this late stage, to save this animal.”
British marine veterinarian, Dr James Barnett, concluded at the weekend: “This animal was extremely malnourished and being kept in inadequate conditions. It is essential that immediate action is taken to improve the animal’s environment and correct its poor nutritive state.”
The sea lion has been so severely starved at ANMP, Barnett said, that the bones of its spine “and the ribs were clearly visible, and the bones of the pelvis were very prominent.”
While it “should weigh in the region of 400 to 500kg,” Barnett said the sea lion actually weighed “no more than 200kg”.
“It would not have taken a marine mammal expert or a veterinary surgeon,” he said, “to have realised the extreme condition of this animal.”
Barnett handed Economides his report at the weekend, but to little avail, according to Alan Knight, a marine-biologist who is both chairman of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue, and director of International Animal Rescue, both of Britain.
Instead of acting on the urgings of Barnett, Knight and marine-biologist David Higgs to seize the animal under Cyprus law on grounds of gross neglect by the ANMP, Economides merely questioned Dr Barnett’s credentials as a marine-wildlife expert, Knight and Higgs said.
Economides dismissed this charge yesterday, but has expressed extreme reluctance at using his authority under law to seize the sea lion and place it where it might recover. Instead he said he needed “evidence” in order to seize the animal.
He said this evidence might come in the report of the three Cyprus vets (none of them a marine-mammal expert) that he sent to the ANMP to verify the findings of the British experts.
Economides insisted his vets had been supervising the sea lion’s daily feeding at the ANMP under a regimen he ordered over a week ago. But Knight and Higgs, who is director of the Environmental Press Agency, said they spent most of the weekend at ANMP, and never saw the sea lion fed once.
Knight told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that the three Cyprus vets, after seeing the sea lion yesterday, concurred with their opinion that the animal’s condition was critical.
Panayiotis Hadjipetrou, manager of the Ocean Aquarium, also in Ayia Napa, yesterday said he was willing to accept custody of the sea lion and nurse it back to health.
But he insisted on being assured by Economides’ department that he would not be blamed if, despite his best efforts, the animal died while in his care, since it is already so near death.
Knight and Higgs plan to discuss a custody transfer today with Hadjipetrou, pending a decision by Economides on removing the sea lion from the ANMP and transferring it to Ocean Aquarium.
