CAMPAIGNS

DOLPHINS

Suffering, not Smiling
The Truth About Captive Dolphins

Misleading the public about dolphin behaviour
It is highly questionable whether marine parks and dolphinariums have any educational value at all. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) states that “marine parks and dolphinariums significantly distort the public’s understanding of the marine environment.”

Captive dolphins do not exhibit the same behaviour as their wild counterparts because of totally different living conditions. The complex nature of dolphins’ lives cannot possibly be demonstrated in captivity.

As documented in 2003, the dolphins at Dolphin Lagoon were made to perform unnatural tricks during the shows such as beaching on land, jumping through hoops, balancing balls on their rostrum and swinging hula-hoops on their rostrum. In the wild, where would we ever see dolphins playing with hula-hoops, jumping through hoops or balancing balls on their rostrum?

Whilst it is true that some species of dolphin are acrobatic by nature, the Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphins are only moderately acrobatic by nature and are known to be shy and unwilling to learn tricks in captivity.

These unnatural tricks not only give the public a false account of how these dolphins behave in the wild. In addition, using animals for entertainment simply reinforces the outdated idea among people, especially children, that animals are ‘clowns’ to be laughed at and their role is to entertain humans.


Help us campaign against the captive dolphin industry.


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