Hong Kong’s Ocean Park: dated and fake, or a conservation champion?

As the 40-year-old amusement park deals with declining visitor numbers and a record deficit, animal rights campaigners criticise its captive marine mammal performances and say its conservation efforts are ‘window dressing’

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Dolphins perform at Ocena Park’s Ocean Theatre. Photo: May Tse

Published: 11:30am, 2 Sep 2017Updated: 1:03pm, 20 Sep 2017

A black sea lion cavorts and dances in time to loud circus music pounding from the sound system. The creature lurches its head violently from side to side, in time to the music, urged on by its trainer, as the audience at Ocean Park claps along in apparent delight.

It’s 50 years since the Hong Kong government agreed to grant free land near Aberdeen for a radical new oceanarium concept, which opened its doors nearly 10 years later, in January 1977.

A dolphin performance at Ocean Park in 1977.

Ocean Park became a source of pride and affection for Hong Kong, and forms part of a collective memory, but five decades later, the tourism landscape has changed dramatically. Hong Kong’s favourite theme park seems to be struggling to adapt, and for some it has become a symbol of shame.

“I am really embarrassed about Ocean Park,” says Zoe Ng a co-founder of Hong Kong’s Empty the Tanks campaign, which opposes keeping marine mammals in captivity.

Governor Sir Murray MacLehose (centre) at Ocean Park after officiating at its opening ceremony in 1977.

Last year, Ocean Park reported a record deficit of HK$241.1 million, visitor numbers were down by 18.8 per cent, and more campaigners like Ng are demanding it ends the practice of keeping marine mammals in captivity.

The business is faltering, the offerings are dated and the park’s claim that it’s a champion of ocean conservation and education looks increasingly like a fake veneer.