Why swimming With Dolphins Should Be Removed From Your Bucket List
A few weeks ago I turned on the TV to find a documentary film called The Cove
. It was about dolphins and I had to watch it because everybody LOVES dolphins.
The movie follows Ric OBarry a former dolphin trainer who is committed to educating the public about the hunting and capturing of dolphins. During the 1960s OBarry helped capture and train the dolphins that were used in the hit TV series Flipper. This very popular TV show influenced the development of many marine parks all over the world that featured dolphins as their main attractions. OBarry says that he was aware of the remarkable intelligence of these mammals but ignored this factor due to the vast about of money he was earning from his career.
Dolphins are amazing creatures with acute eyesight and hearing. They can communicate in a variety of ways with a broad range of sounds. They are very social beings and form very strong social bonds as well as being very altruistic. They are highly complex, free-ranging, intelligent mammals. Keeping them in captivity is a tragedy which is apparent by their shortened lifespan. Many scientists who have researched dolphin behavior believe it is morally unacceptable to keep them captive for entertainment purposes.
Everything changed for OBarry one day when one of the dolphins died in his arms. Kathy, one of the Flipper dolphins, appeared to close her blowhole voluntarily and in OBarrys opinion committed suicide. He could no longer ignore how cruel it was to keep dolphins in confinement.
For the last 38 years OBarry has been fighting the billion dollar industry that he refers to as the dolphin slave trade. He is committed to releasing captive dolphins back into the wild. He is founder of the non-profit organization Dolphin Project Inc. He has also written several books including Behind the Dolphin Smile (1989) and To Free a Dolphin (2000)
OBarrys works to educate the public about the tragedy of captivity and his message to us is stop buying tickets and supporting the exploitation of these beautiful creatures for profit.
I have found swimming with dolphins to be on a lot of the bucket lists that I have come across on the internet. I hope you will watch The Cove because it sure opened my eyes about capturing and hunting dolphins. And I hope you will replace swimming with dolphins with whale watching on your bucket list.