A lot is going on in the world of captive dolphins and whales right now. Several facilities are closing or changing the way they are confining the animals.
Marineland Antibes in France has closed and leaves several bottlenose dolphins and two orcas languishing in crumbling tanks.
Marineland Canada has gone out of business as well and has no plans for what to do with 30 beluga whales (plus other animals) at their facility except to threaten to kill them all.
The Dolphin Company’s recent filing for bankruptcy may necessitate the re-homing of 295 bottlenose dolphins from their 25 facilities across seven countries.
The responsibility for the predicament that cetaceans find themselves in lies solely with the captivity industry itself.And now there is the challenge of where captive dolphins and whales should spend the rest of their lives if and when they are retired from entertainment parks and zoos. Sanctuaries are the obvious answer, but the sanctuary movement is still in its early days and cannot provide for the 3,600 cetaceans held in captivity around the world.
The captivity industry and its followers want to pin this problem on those of us who are against keeping cetaceans in concrete tanks. They want to control the narrative by claiming that it is the fault of the “animal advocates” that there is no place for retired cetaceans to go. They argue that advocates are putting the lives of dolphins and whales at risk by working to get them out of concrete tanks.
But let’s get the narrative straight. The responsibility for the predicament that cetaceans find themselves in lies solely with the captivity industry itself. They alone captured and bred these animals into confined impoverished settings for entertainment. They alone profited from this. They alone want to maintain the status quo. And they alone are still exploiting these animals for their own gain.
Animal welfare advocates, governments, the general public, and the media should reject the narrative that they are to blame for the current problems facing captive dolphins and whales. These problems were caused by an original wrongdoing whose only solution now is for us all to work together to set it right.
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