Dolphins in human care

R

Rachrodgers89

Member
I am currently researching into the attitudes the British public has on dolphins being kept in human care.

There are currently no dolphins in human care in the UK and as DEFRA are currently reviewing guidelines for keeping cetaceans in captivity, I feel it is important we find out whether this is something people are against, or would actually welcome a return of dolphins to the UK.

The survey consists of 9 short questions about dolphins and then a few demographic questions to establish who in the country has been involved in the survey.

If you are interested then please complete the survey here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/dolphinsinhumancare

It should take less than 5 minutes to complete.

Thank You
 
Done. Will you be publishing the results anywhere? I'd be interested to see.
 
Done. It would be interesting to see them, though would have to have much better living conditions than they had when they were last held in UK collections. I find it hard to believe that Whipsnade had dolphins in a tank that looks for small for handful of sealions, let alone that Dudley put Cuddles in the moat.

Did everyone lose their minds in the 70's?
 
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lamna said:
Done. It would be interesting to see them, though would have to have much better living conditions than they had when they were last held in UK collections. I find it hard to believe that Whipsnade had dolphins in a tank that looks for small for handful of sealions, let alone that Dudley put Cuddles in the moat.

Did everyone lose their minds in the 70's?
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Back when elephants were ridden or on leg chains? and chimps had tea parties in tiny cages? Yeah, we weren't so good at looking after animals then! Things have improved a lot now, and we can probably handle cetaceans a hell of a lot better!
If nothing else, we need a rescue facility, killing animals because we don't have any other options is a bit crappy in this day and age!
 
Something like the seal sanctuaries might be nice.

Other than bottlenosed dolphins, what other species really do well in captivity? They are the only ones I can think of that really seem to thrive.
 
lamna said:
Something like the seal sanctuaries might be nice.

Other than bottlenosed dolphins, what other species really do well in captivity? They are the only ones I can think of that really seem to thrive.
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The Harbour Porpoises at Harderwijk seem to do reasonbly well (and they're well cute).
 
Thank you, Rachel, for taking the time to do this. I saw dolphins in the UK at Brighton, Windsor and Whipsnade, as well as Ramu the Killer Whale at Windsor. In no case did I feel that the pools were big enough. Abroad, I have visited Duisburg, Loro Parque and Sea World in San Diego. I felt acquiescent about the Bottle-nosed Dolphins at Duisburg and San Diego, and faintly uneasy about most of the other displays.

I am honestly torn between my own boyish determination to see everything, a more considered belief that captive animals kept well are simply the best ambassadors for wildlife conservation of all, a distaste for animal performances, and an awareness of just how much capital would be needed to see the return of cetaceans to the UK in acceptable conditions.

I would add two other thoughts - somewhere like Harderwijk could surely be emulated in the UK (perhaps Blackpool - a marshy site near the coast ought to find the creation of saltwater lagoons easier than most); and well-kept freshwater cetaceans might JUST help in the conservation of some desperately beleaguered species. With the arguable exception of Orang-Utans and Bonobos, the Amazon river dolphin that I was privileged enough to see in Duisburg gave me a deeper sense of being in the company of a sentient animal than I have ever encountered. It would be wonderful if my children could have similar encounters with animals kept in good facilities.
 
I've heard people mention the possibility of Blackpool Zoo expanding and having more marine animals before. Is that something they are actually considering or just a bit of wishful thinking?
 
Done
I have a mentally handicapped nephew on Tyneside, who my brother and his family take to florida every autumn to swim with the dolphins, it seams to help him with confidence etc so i believe this could be a way to go in keeping the animals in captivity.
The place they go has wild dolphins in that as far as I'm told when the weather is bad ie hurricane season, the dolphins can leap over the fencing and swim off, they always come back when conditions allow. It would seem they get as much enjoyment from human contact as my nephew does with them. My mother swim with them one year and said she cried at their grace, mind you my mother can cry at the closing of a book.:rolleyes:
 
lamna said:
Done. It would be interesting to see them, though would have to have much better living conditions than they had when they were last held in UK collections. I find it hard to believe that Whipsnade had dolphins in a tank that looks for small for handful of sealions, let alone that Dudley put Cuddles in the moat.

Did everyone lose their minds in the 70's?
Click to expand...

I call those the good old days!! I first saw Bottle-nosed Dolphins in the original Dolphin House at Flamingo Park and even I'd say the pools were tiny and I do think Whipsnade's pool was small although it was said to be well-designed with regard to echo-location considerations. Scarborough's main pool too was very small. The fact remains that Dolphins were doing better than ever when they were hounded out of British collections.

Cuddles will be forever my favourite zoo specimen.
 
Devi said:
Back when elephants were ridden or on leg chains?
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I've said it before and it did not go down well, but as a child I loved seeing Elephants in chains and if they were shackled by their front legs my joy was complete. A row of shackled Elephants each with a pile of food (yet straining at the end of their chains to steal a neighbour's meal) such as could be seen in the new house at Flamingo Park in the late 1960s was my favourite sight in a zoo and was what a zoo was all about as far as I was concerned. I did not think the animals should be chained 24 hours a day though as I always liked Elephants to have a paddock (the Flamingo Park paddock was added after the house was opened and I was delighted with it - as I was when one was built at Dudley)!

Sorry for that off-topic post.
 
Commerson's Dolphins do well at Seaworld's Aquatica park in Florida and are incredibly sweet :) I love seeing Dolphins at Seaworld and my Florida trip is never complete with out trying to get a dolphin to interact of it's own accord :)
 
Ah, lovely animals and they seem like they would be fairly easy to keep.

Captive breeding seems fairly successful, I imagine they would be self-sustaining if the captive population was larger.
 
I'm so glad we don't keep dolphins in captivity here. I detest places like SeaWorld and dolphins pretty much go mad in captivity.
 
You dont need to go to a zoo to see bottlenose dolphins.. we have a thriving population here.. and at certain points in the UK you can get closer to them than in any zoos world wide.

Watching the taiji dolphins round ups is just horrific.. and this is where most of the "captive" dolphins come from. The majority of them are wild caught animals...i truely believe that it would be going backwards of the UK kept dolphins/orcas again. They dont live half as long as their wild counter parts.. so its hardly thriving.

I am very pro zoo.. just not for this case
 
Talking only about European and American zoos, they haven't collected wild dolphins since the 80's, let along brought any from Japan. All the dolphins in European and American captivity today are either elderly, captive born or rescues.

As for them not reaching their full lifespan in captivity, wild bottlenose dolphins live to be about 20 years old, the same sort age captive dolphins in good facilities reach, and there are captive ones that are over 50 years old.

Dolphins are difficult and very expensive to keep properly, and there are still a lot of places that do it badly but that doesn't it is impossible keep in zoos.

Why can't otherwise pro-zoo people separate dolphinariums of the past those in less reputable countries from better facilities, when they can with other large, intelligent zoo animals such as apes and elephants?
 
Sorry for the delay in responding.

I will post the results as soon as they are complete onto this forum.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.
 
IanRRobinson said:
Thank you, Rachel, for taking the time to do this. I saw dolphins in the UK at Brighton, Windsor and Whipsnade, as well as Ramu the Killer Whale at Windsor. In no case did I feel that the pools were big enough. Abroad, I have visited Duisburg, Loro Parque and Sea World in San Diego. I felt acquiescent about the Bottle-nosed Dolphins at Duisburg and San Diego, and faintly uneasy about most of the other displays.

I am honestly torn between my own boyish determination to see everything, a more considered belief that captive animals kept well are simply the best ambassadors for wildlife conservation of all, a distaste for animal performances, and an awareness of just how much capital would be needed to see the return of cetaceans to the UK in acceptable conditions.

I would add two other thoughts - somewhere like Harderwijk could surely be emulated in the UK (perhaps Blackpool - a marshy site near the coast ought to find the creation of saltwater lagoons easier than most); and well-kept freshwater cetaceans might JUST help in the conservation of some desperately beleaguered species. With the arguable exception of Orang-Utans and Bonobos, the Amazon river dolphin that I was privileged enough to see in Duisburg gave me a deeper sense of being in the company of a sentient animal than I have ever encountered. It would be wonderful if my children could have similar encounters with animals kept in good facilities.
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Thank you for giving such a thought provoking response.
Having seen dolphins in sea pens instead of tanks I know for me personally i felt more comfortable as there were fish coming in, they had more space, and it felt more like if they were out in the wild.
Clearly in the UK this wouldnt be as enjoyable for the staff working with the animals as it would abroad where it is warmer, but the dolphins as with any captive animal should be the priority!
 
ISOE2012 said:
I'm so glad we don't keep dolphins in captivity here. I detest places like SeaWorld and dolphins pretty much go mad in captivity.
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Thank you for taking the time to read and respond.
If you would like to discuss more about your feelings please email r.e.rodgers@ncl.ac.uk
I am aware you can't fill in that much in the survey so please feel free to email opinions to that address.
 
Lesley4444 said:
You dont need to go to a zoo to see bottlenose dolphins.. we have a thriving population here.. and at certain points in the UK you can get closer to them than in any zoos world wide.

Watching the taiji dolphins round ups is just horrific.. and this is where most of the "captive" dolphins come from. The majority of them are wild caught animals...i truely believe that it would be going backwards of the UK kept dolphins/orcas again. They dont live half as long as their wild counter parts.. so its hardly thriving.

I am very pro zoo.. just not for this case
Click to expand...

this is not true no American dolphins have come from the wild in over 20 years, most of the Taiji dolphins are actually caught to be eaten by the Japanese. Don't believe everything in "The Cove"
 
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