Bottlenose dolphins jumping in the dolphin lagoon. Please note the large stuffed toy dolphin on the wooden structure in the background. It’s used to show visitors on special behind the scenes tours how to handle the dolphins before they get to meet them. The dolphin lagoon is not used for shows, they are held in the show pool.
There are three pools in the dolphinarium, the large show pool and the lagoon. Between them is the "between-pool" (a direct translation of the Swedish name of the pool, mellanbassängen). Normally the dolphins have free access to all pools at all time. The show pool is only open for visitors during shows and the "between-pool" is off-show. The lagoon is open at all time. It's normally very calm in here and very relaxing to just observe the dolphins. As you can see in this picture, it was not very calm. This is really unusual i don't remember why it was so much visitors here. Normally it's just a few persons in here at a time. I think (just my thoughts) that many visitors don't find the lagoon. The entrance is quite far from the show pool and is in a remote corner of the park. To enter the lagoon you have to pass an ordinary small door with a small sign, beside several doors for staff. I think that many visitors don't find the door to the lagoon.
The dolphinarium was built in 1969, but there were some problems as it was built in a hurry, just 8 months from idea to completion. No one at Kolmården know much about dolphins when it was built, leading to a failed construction. To solve the problems the dolphinarium was rebuilt and extended with the lagoon in 1993. The show pool is from 1969. A quite unique feature built 1993 is the filter house outside the dolphinarium. To avoid noise from water pumps, a filter house was built in a slope below the dolphinarium. The water flows to the filter house by gravity and is then filtered. When it's filtered, it's pumped up in a tower, giving it enough pressure to flow back to the dolphinarium without pumps and noise.
