Dolphin & Whale "shows"

Performing dolphins and whales lead a totally un-natural existence. No facility can hope to replicate their natural surroundings or lifestyle in the wild and there is no real conservation, scientific or educational purpose to be served by captivity.

Facilities would have you believe that these animals are simply showing an 'extension' of their behaviours in the wild. This is misleading; no wild dolphin or whale would voluntarily jump out of the water to hit a ball suspended from a rope, jump through a hoop, pull a boat and child around a pool, "kiss" people or beach themselves to have their photographs taken, these are all inventions of the captivity industry to attract customers and un-natural for the animals who have to be trained to do these "tricks", fed with dead fish laced with vitamins.

The marine park industry is constantly thinking of new ways to attract more visitors to their parks and make a greater profit. No longer are they content with souvenir shops and hotdogs, now parks offer many other "experiences" to visitors, from swim with dolphins and trainer sessions to the addition of dolphin "petting pools". These pools offer customers the chance to feed and pet dolphins - a stroke of genius by the parks; another way of saving money, raising profits and public interest, by getting visitors to pay for the dolphins food.

These pools are a danger to the animals for many reasons;

• disease can be spread from fish contaminated during handling
• foreign objects often fall into the pool (for example sunglasses, coins etc)
• dolphins can become aggressive as they compete for food
• there is no area of rest or way to escape the constant attention from the paying public, adding to the animals stress levels

Dolphins, whales and porpoises are highly intelligent mammals and as such as subject to stress from their surroundings, just like humans. While marine parks would have you believe that their animals all die of old age, it is truer to say that many die from stress related diseases, attacks from other animals and from ingestion of foreign objects that have fallen into the pool.

This is a multi billion dollar industry which still captures marine mammals from the wild ~ if you really care for dolphins and whales please, DO NOT BUY A TICKET !

Orcas in captivity ~ 3 sample case histories

The UK - a captive dolphin & whale free zone!