When Ocean Park was on the verge of bringing beluga whales from the wild to Hong Kong, it looked like the only thing standing in the way was public opinion.
After all, the belugas were ready, with six already caught and held in a marine facility in Russia. The park was ready, with a tank big enough to house the whales under construction in the new Polar Adventure area. And the science was ready, with a four-year study having concluded a limited annual catch of the near-threatened species from the Okhotsk Sea was sustainable.
But the Hong Kong public, as it appeared late last month, was anything but ready. Animal-welfare groups were continuing a vigorous campaign against the import of the belugas and a coalition of groups was preparing protests outside Ocean Park unless the project was scrapped.
Ocean Park executives, sensitive to public sentiment, commissioned two major opinion polls. 'As long as you gauge the majority feeling, that should help you make your decision,' chairman Allan Zeman said on August 29 as the park announced it would not import the belugas.
Given that retreat, the survey's results - revealed for the first time in response to questions from the South China Morning Post - are surprising.
The Hong Kong public generally supported the idea of bringing the beluga whales to Hong Kong, the polling showed. And a majority opposed the efforts by animal-welfare groups to block the project.
In one survey, conducted in July by Polytechnic University's School of Hotel and Tourism Management, 63 per cent of respondents supported bringing beluga whales to Ocean Park. In the other, by the University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme, a slight majority of people opposed importing the whales. But three-fifths supported the import so long as Ocean Park worked with other world-class aquariums on animal research to study and conserve beluga whales.