Dolphin Exploitation and Suffering at Seaworld Parks
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Heather D. Rally, DVM and Toni Frohoff, PhD, PETA Foundation
June 2019

The well-being of captive dolphins at the parks is severely compromised by the conditions in which they’re forced to live. This includes an astonishing number of dolphins—140—confined to just seven tanks at four SeaWorld–owned theme parks in the Unites States.

In 2016, SeaWorld announced that it would end its orca-breeding program after facing mounting criticism from scientists and the public over its poor treatment of captive orcas (Howard, 2016). Since this announcement, however, the company has continued to breed bottlenose and Pacific white-sided dolphins—the orca’s smaller cousins—and house them in small, concrete tanks, as well as exploiting them in archaic, circus-style performances and interactive programs in which they’re touched, grabbed, and stood on by trainers.

In November 2018, a veterinarian observed the captive dolphins held at the SeaWorld parks in San Diego, San Antonio, and Orlando. Evidence obtained from those observations revealed that the well-being of captive dolphins at the parks is severely compromised by the conditions in which they’re forced to live.

This includes an astonishing number of dolphins—140—confined to just seven tanks at four SeaWorld–owned theme parks in the Unites States. This report provides a glimpse into the miserable lives of these exploited animals, who endure routine physical, psychological, and social stress and at times sustain painful injuries as a result.

Please read the complete article here (PDF)

A growing body of research has found that exposure to excessive or unnatural levels of noise can affect a number of health and welfare parameters in cetaceans, including immune suppression, increased aggression, and premature hearing loss. Indeed, captive dolphins who are exposed to acoustic insults are known to demonstrate physiological and behavioral indications of stress, such as an increase in circulating stress hormones and a refusal to perform or eat.

The dolphin’s lower jaw, or mandible, supports nearly the full force of the trainer’s bodyweight during tricks that involve standing on the rostrum. The mandible is a sensitive structure that plays an important role in hearing. It is filled with delicate fatty tissue that allows dolphins to receive underwater sound vibrations through the jaw bone. These are then transmitted directly to the middle ear, where they’re perceived as sound (Rommel, Costidis, & Lowenstine, 2018). Thus, the bones and joints of and around the mandible are important to the animals’ acoustic health, and routine exposure to excessive or abnormal force on these structures could not only be uncomfortable but even cause damage.

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