The Importance Of Dolphin Captivity

World Animal Protection USA, an organization that promotes the need to help suffering animals, stated, “Dolphins in the wild may swim up to 40 or 50 miles in a day and can dive to depths of hundreds of feet. Even in the largest captive facilities, dolphins have access to less than 1/10,000 of 1% (0.000001%) of the space available to them in their natural environment.” Dolphin captivity is when people keep dolphins in closed-in areas and own them for educational purposes or entertainment purposes. Dolphin circuses are groups of people who keep dolphins, normally illegally, to train them to do tricks and show off their tricks to people for a price. Dolphins, who are not kept in captivity and circuses are in their natural habitat, the ocean.

It has been claimed that in captivity, the health of dolphins improves. Zach Affolter, an animal activist that raises awareness through videos, poems, and articles, described, “A great deal of interest has developed in the conservationist community about the possibility of using captive breeding to sustain populations that would otherwise be endangered or eliminated by various artificial threats. Several successful births of cetaceans have been delivered in captivity, primarily of bottlenose dolphins and killer whales.“ However, dolphins should not be kept in captivity, nor circuses because their health decreases in captivity and circuses. Dolphin Project, an organization dedicated to the welfare and protection of dolphins worldwide, said, “Here they are trained by starvation. They learn to jump through hoops, play catch with plastic toys and perform other unnatural behaviors for a fish reward. Their teeth are filed down so they can’t accidentally bite a visitor.” This evidence proves that when dolphins are forced to perform tricks for the audience, they are at risk of failing to complete these tricks which can severely injure them. When dolphins get their teeth filed down, they are forced

Dolphins-World, a foundation whose goal is to raise awareness about dolphin captivity and inform people about dolphins in general, pointed out, “Orcas (Orcinus orca) and large sharks dispute the title of “The most dangerous predator of dolphins,” and is that both, with their size and other physical characteristics and, of course, their natural need to feed on meat, find dolphins attractive.” On the other hand, dolphins thrive in their natural environment and should not be kept in captivity for this reason. Maddalena Bearzi, a photo journalist and blogger, reported to National Geographic, “Dolphins, like some other animals, are essentially complex social mammals that need expansive space to live in. A tank can’t even begin to address these needs…” This data suggests that dolphins are very social animals that use a sizable amount of space and when they are being kept in small tanks, they are suffering from the need for more room to be able to do all the activities they would do in the wild. In one case, human interaction caused two dolphins to be captured illegally and sold to a hotel with a “swim with the dolphins” program. When the hotel no longer wanted them, the two dolphins were left to die in an aged and dirty tank. Word Animal Protection USA, an organization that promotes the need of helpless and suffering animals, explained, “Dolphins are intelligent and