When I arrived at the ECS 2005 conference in La Rochelle, I was told that
harbour porpoises were being fed at Scheveningen harbour. Back in The
Netherlands I was lucky that one of my employees still had access to the
article (attached to this message).
In short, the article from the March 30 issue of The Post Horn (Posthoorn)
newspaper notes on the front page article that porpoises may become the new
tourist craze for the The Hague beach resort of Scheveningen. The Foundation
for Tourism and Events of Scheveningen used small rafts to feed the
porpoises fish from baskets, to get familiar with the boats and human
intervention. This has been done for some weeks.
Two days after publication, on Friday, a Harderwijk Dolphinarium trainer
will start luring the animals to the harbour to give enthousiasts an
opportunity to see these wild animals from up close. The idea is that having
harbour porpoises accustomed to people and harbour, they will bring about
extra tourists, eager to see the small creature first hand.
The April 6 issue of the same newspaper (also attached) marked a great
success in luring over a hundred unsuspecting visitors to the Aprils fool
trick. Most comments were of the 'I knew but I was interested to see who
else was fooled' type of excuse.
see http://www.deposthoorn.nl/
Jan Willem Broekema
European Cetacean Society council
- Scans of Dutch article available on request.
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