At last…
This blog is written by Öykü Yağcı of the Freedom for Dolphins Platform. She and her team have been working tirelessly to halt captivity within Turkey through a variety of campaigns. The following is some good news from just one of those campaigns.
Source: Dolphin Project blog
26.08.2014
While Turkish animal rights activists are anxiously waiting for the government to bring a ban on the opening of new dolphinariums and, at the same time, fighting for all to shut down legally, they celebrated a recent good news from Groupon, which had been promoting dolphin parks in Turkey since 2011.
The Groupon Turkey team published a letter on their social media feeds on June 26, 2014, apologizing from activists and announcing that they will not be doing business with dolphin parks and stop supporting animal captivity in dolphinariums from now on!
Here is the company’s full statement:
“It is utterly unacceptable to keep dolphins in captivity and force them physically to do tricks against their will and nature. These animals are so smart and have a great sense of self and freedom. We are so sorry and regretful that we had promoted captivity for a long a time and associated ourselves with this captivity industry. We would like everyone to know this will not happen again and apologize from all animal lovers who reacted to our previous promotions.”
Freedom for Dolphins Platform (Yunuslara Özgürlük Platformu) had called for a country-wide boycott of Groupon Turkey, since the day the company first offered dolphinarium coupons in 2011, and had been heightening their protests over Twitter and Facebook from time to time with thousands of people participating in the mass boycott. One of the members of the Platform also started a Change.org petition campaign against the company in 2013 demanding urgent cancellation of such pro-captivity deals. After three years, WWF Turkey also decided to join the process a week ago with a seperate campaign but with the same message and approach. Recent protests organized in June this year in Bodrum by Freedom for Dolphins Platform and and in Antalya by Antalya Bar Association Animal Rights Council against the present dolphinariums also emphasized an end to this million dollar captivity industry both locally and internationally.
With the support of thousands of people, Freedom for Dolphins Platform previously succeeded in convincing many huge Turkish companies (Digiturk, Denizbank, Birliktealalim.com, Kamil Koç, Opet, Boyner, Hürriyet Çocuk Kulübü, etc.) to stop making business with dolphin parks since 2010.
For more info visit Freedom for Dolphins Platform on Facebook.
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Unfortunately, Groupon in the United States continues to offer deals with captivity facilities, including SeaWorld. Please sign this petition to voice your concern.
