Swimming with dolphins in captivity – is it safe?

Press Statement on occasion of World Day for Captive Dolphins - 4/07/2006

As in past years, CETFREE – a coalition of local and international NGO’s – is once again launching its annual awareness campaign on the problems related to dolphins in captivity. This includes a nationwide school competition on captivity, interactive educational sessions for summer-school students and public awareness.

CETFREE expressed concern with various entities including the Vet Services Department, Commissioner for Children and Health authorities about the current situation vis-à-vis the health and safety of dolphins and humans in local swim-with-dolphins-programmes but, to date, has not received any feedback. There seems to be a lack of regulation in this regard and the public should be informed of possible dangers of such activities.

In a report to the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), researchers from the University of California highlighted the potential health risks to which humans are exposed through contact with marine mammals such as skin rashes, infections, respiratory diseases (including diseases such as tuberculosis and potential infectious diseases. The threat of injury is also very real as dolphins captured form the wild are still unpredictable animals no matter how much training or sedatives they are subjected to. Broken bones, bites, lacerations and even human deaths have been recorded in dolphinariums worldwide. Dolphins are, after all, very strong and aggressive predators as other large mammals such as the lion – would you risk entering its cage?

CETFREE is very much concerned with the stressful conditions in which these animals are kept and by the traumatizing methods with which they are captured. This includes potentially deadly high-speed boat chases, encircling of dolphins, hoop netting (capturing the dolphins with a collar as they are bowriding), or even worse are the methods used in Japan – the dolphin drive hunts where dolphins are rounded up and some are butchered with knives and spears while others are kept alive and dragged away for dolphinariums. “Mortality rates of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) captured from the wild shoot up six-fold in the first five days of confinement.”

CETFREE commends all those companies and schools who have decided not to support such an international cruel trade which is fuelled by misinformation and miseducation. It also calls upon the authorities to issue regulations and standards for all animals being held in captivity in Malta and for transparency in the operative procedures of such establishments. For more info please visit www.cetfree.org.

CETFREE (CETACEAN FREEDOM ALLIANCE) CONSISTS OF: CATCARE ASSOCIATION; INTERNATIONAL ANIMAL RESCUE (MALTA); ISLAND SANCTUARY; MOVIMENT GRAFFITTI; NATURE TRUST (MALTA); WORLD ANIMAL CONSCIENCE;ANIMAL RIGHTS MALTA INTERNATIONAL SUPPORTERS: INTERNATIONAL ANIMAL RESCUE, MARINE CONNECTION, WHALE AND DOLPHIN CONSERVATION SOCIETY, WORLD SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF ANIMALS, RSPCA INTERNATIONAL, THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES/HUMANE SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL, CETACEAN SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL AND EARTH ISLAND INSTITUTE INTERNATIONAL MARINE MAMMAL PROJECT, ONE VOICE AND DOLPHIN PROJECT, INTERNATIONAL DOLPHIN WATCH

No to Mediterraneo Marine Park at Baћar iċ-Ċagћaq

Moviment Graffitti is a member of CETFREE (CETACEAN FREEDOM ALLIANCE). CETFREE being a coalition of local and international NGO’s sharing the common belief that captivity is cruel and that education cannot be accomplished through the use of animals in captivity.

Press Release 02.06.05 - CAPTIVITY IS CRUEL: DON’T SUPPORT KIDNAPPING AND IMPRISONMENT OF DOLPHINS
See Press Conference Pictures

The 4th of July is World Day for Captive Dolphins – a day dedicated to creating awareness on the darker side of captivity as supported by the entertainment business of dolphinaria. This press conference has also been called to launch this summer’s campaign by sending a message to the public that activities which involve captive animals should not be supported. The launching of the billboard today is to direct a campaign towards the public who are unknowingly supporting the cruelty of captivity by visiting leisure parks which make use of captive animals such as dolphins, seals and sea lions. If the public did not visit these parks such commercial ventures would not exist, and dolphins would not need to be kidnapped and imprisoned.

Behind the rosy image portrayed by the adverts of dolphinaria, lies the real and sad story of wild animals that are torn from their habitat and their social groups and deprived of their priceless freedom to give way to a life locked up in concrete prisons. Dolphinaria cannot offer more than an artificial, boring and barren alien world which often leads to physical and mental disturbances in the animals.

The very nature of these animals makes them unsuited for confinement. In the wild, dolphins live in large groups, often in tight family units. Family bonds last for several years, sometimes a lifetime. Their capture disrupts social groups and splits up families. Capture stress can be very severe and many times fatal. The capture of the dolphins from the wild betrays their trust. Dolphins often come to play at the bow of a capture boat, only to be netted and hauled aboard, an act which cannot be described otherwise than traumatic for the dolphins.

Dolphins travel long distances each day, and can stay underwater for up to half an hour. They normally spend only around 10 to 20% on the surface. All this is denied to them in a pool. Apart from denying dolphins normal family bonds, pools only allow them to swim a few strokes in any direction before coming to a wall. Because the pools are shallow, their natural tendencies are reversed, and they spend more than half their time at the pool’s surface. This unnatural condition can cause skin problems. The monotonous and barren nature of the pool environment, also becomes like a hall of echoes bouncing off sonar clicks, the method by which individual dolphins define their surroundings. Captive dolphins have nothing like the varied stimulation of their natural environments. For dolphins, pools are the cetacean equivalent of human prisons where they can become depressed, aggressive and even suicidal. Captivity is cruel and shortens the life of captured Cetaceans.

In particular CETFREE is concerned about the local situation for various reasons: