Reading the recent article about the demise and what some researchers and scientists believe is the inevitable extinction of the Maui’s Dolphin.  The world smallest Dolphin only found in New Zealand’s waters.  Got me thinking about my country’s Snubfin Dolphins having read back in 2011 that some believe they are on a course towards extinction as well.  That was 2 years ago and the current Australian government is “streamlining” all environmental processes, reducing protections against industrialization and fishing, the massive increase of ports and future shipping lanes in areas that are home to the Snubfin Dolphin and of course ignoring the World Heritage Committee warning about downgrading the current listing to “under threat” in the Great Barrier Reef.  The possible return of the super-trawler, oh the list just goes on and I am sure it’s not just Australia and New Zealand’s dolphins and other marine life that are under threat from so many angles.

With the release of books and films such as: “Death at SeaWorld” by David Kirby, “A Fall from Freedom” by EarthViews Productions , “The Cove” by Louie Psihoyos,  “Blackfish” by Gabriela Cowperthwaite  so many people are seeing some of the more deliberately hidden aspects involved in keeping Orca captive, regardless of which facility they are in and many are deciding it’s cruelty and an industry that they no longer want to support.

However, a lot of people don’t realise that an Orca is actually the largest member of the forty species of dolphin in 17 genera (due to the deceptive name Killer Whale, funnily enough used by so called educational captive facilities).  This to me really means, that although of the smaller species of dolphin may appear due to their size, not require as large a holding spaces (such as sea pens, lagoons, pools and tanks) however, they still have the same basic physical and emotional needs as their larger counterparts the Orca.  So I believe that the evidence that Orca are not suitable to captivity represented in the film “Blackfish” would also apply to all dolphins.

So SeaWorld and every other captive facility showing dolphins, if you are serious about conservation, why are your dolphin breeding programs only about keeping captive facilities re-stocked.  Why aren’t you spending your time and money on the research and science behind rescue, rehabilitation and “RELEASE” of dolphins.  Isn’t your end goal the conservation of the species?  With the public becoming more aware, what you should have worked out by now (if you haven’t already,) is that the real education coming from decades of the captive industry is, these animals do not do well in captivity.

I think with what appears to be a shift in mainstream attitude towards the marine mammal captive industry, if SeaWorld is really to put some backbone behind their conservation cries, it’s time for them to do the right thing and start actually getting their dolphins into sea pens, and working on the science behind rehabilitation and release.  We’ve had 40 years of research on how to keep them captive which is looking more and more like a failed experiment with very little of that time being spent on how to rescue with release as the end result in comparison.

For those that say it can’t be done, recently there have been attempts (but certainly not enough of them) some undeniably successful  such as; 2 bottlenose dolphins Tom & Misha rescued form Hisaronu, Turkey by The Borne Free Foundation, 3 bottlenose Jedol, Chunsam and Sampal released back to their pods in South Korea by Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project and some releases where the success of the releases has been debated such as Keiko the Orca, who was the star of the film “Free Willy” and was rehabbed and released by the The Free Willy Foundation. For those that didn’t notice, take note that none, of the attempts to rehabilitation mentioned for release were carried out by SeaWorld, although there may be one or two cetacean releases by SeaWorld, I was unable to find any media on them to be able to make comment of them.

If you look at the world news with regards to marine issues, it’s not hard to see that our planet’s oceans are in trouble, despite the education places like SeaWorld profess to be delivering.  Currently there aren’t any worldwide studies of dolphin populations, however it isn’t hard to see dolphins are in trouble, when you look at individual populations and collect all the dots.  Come on SeaWorld what are you really about, circus performances for entertainment or the conservation of our oceans and marine life?