the captive environment

Dolphins have evolved over millions of years, adapting perfectly to life in the ocean. They are intelligent, social and self-aware, exhibiting evidence of a highly developed emotional sense. Here are just a few of the issues with captivity:

• Captures of dolphins are traumatic and stressful and can result in injury and death of dolphins. The capture and transport process is so traumatic to dolphins that their mortality risk increases six-fold during the first five days of capture and with every transport between facilities.
  
  The number of dolphins that die during capture operations or shortly thereafter are never revealed in dolphinariums or swim-with-dolphins programs. Some facilities even claim their dolphins were "rescued" from the ocean and cannot be released. This claim is almost invariably false.
  
  
• Training of dolphins is often deliberately misrepresented by the captive dolphin industry to make it look as if dolphins perform because they like it. This isn't the case. They are performing because they have been deprived of food. The trainers call their training method “positive reward.” From the dolphins’ perspective, however, it's food deprivation. If the dolphins get it wrong and the whistle is not blown, that means they won't be getting any fish reward.
  
  
• The shift in diet from chasing down live fish to being fed dead ones is so tremendous that dolphins sometimes have to be force-fed through a stomach tube until they learn to accept the new food.
  
  
• Most captive dolphins are confined in minuscule tanks containing chemically treated artificial seawater. Dolphins in a tank are severely restricted in using their highly developed sonar, which is one of the most damaging aspects of captivity. It is much like forcing a person to live in a hall of mirrors for the rest of their life - their image always bouncing back with no clear direction in sight.
  
  
• Dolphins are free-ranging marine mammals that would normally swim up to 40 miles per day. Our work is not about making the cage bigger. It's about abolishing the cage. The only habitat that meets a dolphin's space requirements is - the open sea.