“Moby-Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!” Thus urges Starbuck, the first mate, to Captain Ahab to desist from his pursuit of the leviathan of Herman Melville's novel. A less dramatic and thereby more poignant drama of human fascination with creatures of the deep is being played out in a hotel in Dubai, as we report on page 4. The Atlantis hotel has captured not a whale, but a whale shark - so a fish, rather than a mammal. And what a fish.The largest variety in the ocean, a whale shark can grow as long as 40 feet.

The hotel claims to have “rescued” the young shark that it now holds. The shark, which has been nicknamed Sammy, was allegedly in distress. It has been held in captivity - specific- ally, the hotel's aquarium - since early September. There is no indication that the hotel intends to release the shark, whose presence is clearly being marketed as a tourist attraction.

The hotel should reconsider the treatment of Sammy. There are some animals for whom captivity is an aid to conservation of the species. The whale shark is not one of them.

Whale sharks are migratory creatures. They may live for decades in the wild, but their life span in captivity is known to be much shorter. They are protected creatures under international convention. The hotel should therefore accede to public pressure and set Sammy free. He would then have to find his way through the man-made archipelagos off the Dubai coast to reach truly open water, and he might need help. Keiko the killer whale, star of the Free Willy films, certainly did. Either way, he deserves the chance to show the world what makes Sammy swim.