Dubai’s treehuggers knocked the ball out of the park in their war against the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai which opened last month. Atlantis the Palm, as it is known, is one of the most luxurious resorts built on the man-made Palm Jumeirah development, at a cost of something just less than a whopping billion pounds, with 1539 rooms, a 46 hectare site with 17 hectares of water themed amusement at Aquaventure, extensive fresh and salt-water pools and lagoon exhibits, an open-air marine habitat, a seemingly endless stretch of beach, luxury shopping, numerous dining choices including four celebrity chef restaurants, an exciting nightclub, a Spa and Fitness Club, and 5,600 sq metres of meeting and function space.

And seems they entrapped a 13 ft whale shark named Sammy in their giant aquarium, ostensibly under the pretense of a scientific study, stating that they had found the female whale struggling in shallow waters. As far as in-house Zoos and Aquariums in hotels are concerned, the Atlantis’ open air tank is probably one of the biggest draws in the middle east, if not in the world, with 65,000 fish, stingrays and other sea creatures.

Environmentalists in Dubai raged a fierce campaign to ‘Free Sammy’, which included Dubai’s main daily newspaper The Gulf News writing about it and calling Sammy’s confinement ‘cruel beyond belief’, along with bumper stickers on cars, placard waving activists, and even a facebook campaign with over 8000 endorements, plus a song on a local radio station. All of this naturally spilled over outside Dubai, and a ton of ink was spilled by magazines and newspapers worldwide in condemnation of the Sammy’s captivity.

The end result of all the pressure was that the Government announced that the whale shark will be freed.  Dr Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahd, the Minister of Environment and Water in Dubai, said that the shark will be freed ‘in due course’. No time frame was specified.

The Atlantis,  created by Kerzner International Holdings Limited, was developed by Sol Kerzner, a South African property tycoon and Nakheel Developers, a state owned concern in Dubai.

Posted on October 28th, 2008 by Thomas
Filed under: Hotels, News