Dubai Dolphinarium at Marine World, Creek Park, Dubai

This Dhs.205 (£28) million facility is spread over a total area of 19,000 square metres in Creek Park and will include a; -Dolphinarium -Fish Farm -GatorVille -Coral Reef Aquarium -Marine Science Institute

The arena in Dubai Dolphinarium, the first of the five concepts of Dubai Marine World has seating capacity for 1,222 spectators arranged in a semi circle stadium surrounding a 5.5 metre deep, 26 metre wide eliptical pool, where the animals put on choreographed shows. The facility will also offer dolphin therapy sessions. The facility is being funded by Dubai Municipality and its investment partner, a company called Royal Segrex. The facility houses three Black Sea bottlenose dolphins and two sea-lions.

Conflictingly, as part of this development, a plan has been proposed to develop dolphin watching excursions from the park into The Persian Gulf to view wild dolphins.

October 2008
Dubai Dolphinarium/Creek Park Marine World are rumoured to be importing four bottlenose dolphins taken from the drive hunts in Taiji, Japan at a total cost of around $320,000 USD. We assume these dolphins are for use in the DAT sessions planned at the facility.
View footage of Dubai Dolphinarium/Creek Park Marine World here

July 2008
Dubai Dolphinarium, one of the five concepts of Dubai Marine World is now open for the public and offers dolphin and sea lion shows three to four times per day. They plan to bring in four trained dolphins later in the year to participate in dolphin assisted therapy.

May 2008
Initially scheduled to open last year and then rescheduled to March this year, however works remain unfinished and Dubai Municipality has issued a statement that Marine World will open in summer 2008. Three dolphins were transferred from Turkey to Marine World in late 2007 and the Marine Connection are very concerned for their welfare due to the fact that they were retained within the facility during construction works which would have been particularly disturbing to them. Two sea lions will be joining the bottlenose dolphins, transferred from one of the Commonwealth Independent States (CIS), an alliance of former Soviet Republics.

February 2008
Despite claims by this facility that they would be open at the end of 2007, building works continue but Creek Park remains closed. It is now apparently scheduled to open in March 2008.

October 2007
The Marine Connection learned that the three Black Sea bottlenose dolphins destined for Creek Park Marine World were exported from Turkey where they had been previously transferred from Ukraine’s Karadag Biostation. According to information provided to the Marine Connection by CITES the dolphins were wild caught. This is a contradiction to claims made by Dubai Municipality and Christopher Richardson, Managing Director of Royal Segrex, that; “These are third generation dolphins who were born in artificial conditions and don’t know what it’s like to be in the wild”.

Black Sea bottlenose dolphins are protected by several conventions and agreements. Furthermore, in 2002 a quota of zero was established for commercial export of live dolphins wild-captured in the Black Sea. Despite legislative protection the population of Black Sea bottlenose dolphin is affected by illegal and uncontrolled trade. Worldwide demand for bottlenose dolphins for the captive display industry is high, and unknown numbers of dolphins are removed from the Black Sea annually for national use and export.

September 2007
Reports were received that building work has been completed and the opening is less than three months away. Salah Al Qaiwani, head of contracts at Dubai Municipality, said that construction is finished and now they are working on interior.