Luxury Dubai hotel opens amid dolphin controversy

Dubai’s £950 million Atlantis The Palm hotel is set to officially open on Thursday. It is development on the Palm Jumeirah island by South African property tycoon Sol Kerzner.

The luxury hotel boasts a dolphin facility, known as Dolphin Bay, that the property owner says is Dubai’s first dolphin rescue and rehabilitation centre.

It is being claimed, however, by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) the 24 bottlenose dolphins, which will stock to stock the centre’s pools, were purchased from dealer based in the Solomon Islands.

The WDCS is asserting that the dolphins, which are being relocated from the seas around the Solomon Islands, are being brought in to entertain hotel guests. A 90-minute ‘shallow water interaction’ experience, in which guests are able to swim with the resident dolphins, is a feature of the property available at a cost of approximately £75.

The dispute follows a decision by the UAE government last month that ordered a 13-foot whale shark to be freed from a tank in the lobby of the 1,539-room hotel, after animal rights groups from around the world protested the whale’s confinement.

Environmentalists had claimed that the hotel’s owners violated international law when they captured the whale shark in shallow coastal waters and then used it as a display in the lobby pool for its guests.

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