Could Zhuhai's new Ocean Kingdom create a market for imported killer whales?
As one of China's biggest theme parks opens its doors in Zhuhai, conservationists fear killer whales may soon be put on show there, opening the floodgates on demand for orcas around the country, writes Simon Parry
It cost a reported US$5 billion to build. It features the world's biggest aquarium. It showcases what it claims is the world's longest roller coaster. And it boasts a massive collection of whales, sharks and animals rarely, if ever, seen in captivity in China.
There's no question about it: Ocean Kingdom, the giant theme park on Hengqin island, at the southern tip of Zhuhai, which was scheduled to open this weekend, in time for the Lunar New Year holiday, is destined to make something of a splash.
Owned by the Chime-Long Group, which runs China's biggest theme park - Chime-Long Paradise, in Guangzhou - Ocean Kingdom is about twice the size of Hong Kong's Ocean Park and three times the size of the city's Disneyland.
A turreted, fairy-tale palace-like 1,888-room resort hotel has already opened next to the massive main attraction, which - although it still looks unfinished in large areas - promises to provide the region's ultimate theme-park experience. Tourism officials in Hong Kong have every reason to take a keen and slightly anxious look at what happens at Ocean Kingdom, which is linked to Macau by a new bridge and will be just half an hour's drive from here when the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is open.
Its arrival is the first part of the transformation of the near-barren, sparsely populated fishing island of Hengqin in a multibillion-dollar central government-endorsed scheme to make it the Orlando of Asia - a reference to the Florida city known for its theme parks and other tourist attractions - to neighbouring Macau's Las Vegas. While overcrowded Macau offers the world's biggest gambling destination, with revenues seven times those of Vegas, Hengqin will provide open spaces, sandy beaches and luxury apartments for mainland and overseas investors.
It's all about being the biggest and the best, and in keeping with its quest for superlatives, Ocean Kingdom has sought and obtained some of the biggest beasts in the animal kingdom - including whales, sharks and polar bears. But beneath the hype and hyperbole lurk unanswered questions about the range of the animal attractions at Ocean Kingdom and the way they have been acquired.
Concerns began to surface when Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying visited the theme park in December and posed for pictures next to a pool of beluga whales - a species whose wild capture is so controversial that there was a massive outcry in Hong Kong when Ocean Park considered importing six of them. The furore was so great that, in August 2011, despite having funded a years-long research project to establish that wild populations in Russian waters would not be adversely affected by the capture, Ocean Park decided not to go ahead with the importation.