Dolphin Captivity Essay

2150 Words9 Pages
Implications for Keeping Dolphins in Captivity The growing desire to swim with dolphins and watch them perform in shows has turned the dolphin industry into a multibillion-dollar industry in just a few decades. As the industry grows, the question of if it’s ethically right to keep dolphins in captivity for our entertainment is continuously asked. Scientists have done extensive research on dolphins and have gained a great deal of knowledge about them. There are thirty-eight species of dolphins ranging the Maui dolphin; the smallest dolphin at four feet long, to the Orca, which is commonly mistaken to be a whale because it is over thirty-one feet long (9). Bottlenose dolphins and Orcas are the most common breeds of dolphins in captivity today because their natural intelligence makes it easy for trainers to teach them to do tricks and perform (9). They are incredibly smart creatures, and are trained to perform in multiple shows a day, after they perform they spend the rest of their day in the tanks. To try to make it more acceptable to keep them in captivity, trainers say that dolphins are used as education or scientific…show more content…
Dolphins are too complex of animals to be trapped in a small tank. In the wild they are able to swim hundreds of miles a day and interact with other dolphins, but that freedom is not mimicked in captivity. They are the second smartest animals on the planet, after humans; so teaching them tricks like jumping in the air doesn’t exemplify how smart they really are. Although we enjoy watching the performance, the combination of lack of social interactions and the overall environment of the marine park causes a lot of stress for them, which then leads to other health problems. Scientists have gained a great deal of information about dolphins, but each study conducted seems to have the same end result; new information supporting the negative affects of keeping dolphins in
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