The making of the Portuguese version of ‘Dolphins with the Stars’, which was due to air in June and start filming on Tuesday this week, has been suspended after the Institute for Nature and Forest Conservation (ICNF) and the Food and Veterinary Directorate General (DGAV) both issued an “unfavourable opinion” of the programme’s making to the head of Zoomarine’s administrative board.
Renowned presenter Barbara Guimarães had been chosen to front the reality show, which is described as “a contest, performance and reality show in the water that adds a new twist to the Celebrity Show: for the first time on TV, celebrities and dolphins pair up to take part in a spectacular contest.”
According to the programme’s outline, ten celebrities live alongside their dolphin partners for one month and perform for the public in a dolphinarium-stroke-TV stage.
A jury made up of three experts and the public decide which celebrity-dolphin couple wins the competition.
Initial reports suggested the location for filming had been a toss-up between the Algarve’s Zoomarine and Lisbon Zoo, which also has a dolphinarium.
In a statement issued on Monday, national channel SIC said it had learned of the veterinary and nature conservation institutes’ opinions and had decided to “immediately suspend production on the programme.”
In the same statement, which has been widely reproduced in the national media, SIC explains that “Dolphins with the Stars started production after obtaining authorisation from Zoomarine, who never put forward any legal limitation to the defined and agreed contents of the programme.”
Even before the suspension of the programme became public, the PAN Party for Nature and Animals had asked for it to be stopped.
In a statement the party said: “PAN has just brought an injunction against the company Mundo Aquatico, which owns the Zoomarine water park in Albufeira, with a request for immediate suspension of the use of wildlife for the recordings of the Dolphins with Stars programme, in Portuguese ‘Golfinhos com as Estrelas’, until the opinion report of the Zoological Parks Monitoring and Ethics Committee is known”.
Meanwhile, in a statement sent to The Portugal News, Zoomarine said filming for the programme had been suspended by both the TV station and the park itself following the ICNF and the DGAV’s adverse official opinions.
“This opinion came following a detailed presentation prepared by Zoomarine regarding the television programme content. In addition to the entertainment component, which is not a unique feature in the programme, it highlighted the strong presence of content about Research, Conservation and Education, the three key values that guide the activity of Zoomarine in Portugal”, the park stressed.
Zoomarine said both it and SIC are “convinced (…) that these contents would further create awareness among the Portuguese about this magnificent marine species, giving them a little more knowledge, and help people to change their behaviour to help the conservation of marine ecosystems.”
Despite all this, Zoomarine concluded, the ICNF and the DGAV “were not sensitive to the arguments” and “issued a negative opinion on the programme production.”
The popular sea life conservation attraction – one of the Algarve’s biggest and busiest theme parks – said that animals’ welfare and safety is “widely safeguarded” at all times by a team of technicians who are “dedicated and passionate about their profession and for animal life.”
“If the programme had not been unauthorised by these officials, for the first time in prime time, a TV show would have conveyed wide-ranging content on science, conservation and education about sea-life and in particular dolphins”, Zoomarine concluded.