This is the last part of the dolphin series.

History

Animals have been held in captivity by humans for thousands of years.

• almost every species of marine mammal except for most of the great whales have been held in captivity, even if only for short periods of time. Most of them are dolphins, porpoises and pinnipeds.
• Animals are kept captive for different reasons: display in zoos and aquaria, military work, scientific (including military) research and rehabilitation of injured or sick animals with the intention of release. These categories are not mutually exclusive.
• The number of zoological parks displaying marine mammals increased rapidly since 1950. Technology, methods for capture, transport and maintenance improved with increasing knowledge and experience. Scientists also took advantage of the animals being kept at facilities to do research on dolphin acoustics, human/dolphin communication, dolphin brain function, hearing, echolocation and behavior.
• Due to reduced public support over keeping cetaceans in captivity aquaria and oceanaria business slowed down in 1980. The pressure lead to closure of some facilities and prevented some new ones from being opened. But even if there was a decline, the number of such facilities generally still increased.
• Marine mammals are expensive and difficult to maintain in captivity. They require a lot of logistical support, such as high-quality food sources, specialized veterinary care, large enclosures and expensive water-quality maintenance systems. A few species predominate at these facilities because they are easier to maintain in captivity and are relatively easy to capture. Most often used in public performances are common and Indo-Pacific (Tursiops aduncus) bottlenose dolphins, belugas, killer whales and California sea lions (Zalophus californianus).

Reasons people list to justify dolphin captivity

Breeding in captivity

• supporters of captivity facilities assume that people, who experience living marine mammals in close proximity, are more likely to develop or enhance their conservation ethic. The extent to which commercial oceanaria have contributed to peoples’ enhanced affection for marine mammals is questionable and has yet to be measured and reported. There is little research on how much and if visiting aquaria affects peoples’ conservation ethic.
• The results aren’t optimistic, there was a survey conducted in 1998, where 80 % of respondents believed that facilities shouldn’t be permitted to display marine mammals unless there was scientific or educational benefit. Over 90 % of respondents stated that facilities should not be allowed to keep marine mammals in captivity unless the animals were well maintained, both physically and mentally. So people generally oppose keeping marine animals in captivity, unless there are favourable conditions (from people’s point of view, of course).
• Oceanaria, whale and dolphin watching operations and ocean cruise lines provide an opportunity to interact with a small number of species at close range. Marine mammals are maintained in captivity to entertain, educate and provide “therapy” for people. Dolphin swim programs are offered by most captive display facilities and generate millions of revenue. Customers are told that captive dolphins are better off than those in the wild, such as in a statement from the Dolphin Discovery website (http://www.dolphindiscovery.com/teens/info_how-dolphin-learn.asp, 22.8.2007): dolphins live in an area protected by fences where they are safe from predators such as sharks and where they can be with people in a completely safe environment. During the day they play with people several times and they also have free time so they can be alone, play among themselves or do whatever they want. When one of them does not feel well, it changes its attitude, keeps away from the others or does not eat, then the veterinarians check them up and give them the right medicine so they can feel better. Similar reasons are used on the Dolphin Quest website (http://www.dolphinquest.org/getthefacts/welfare/, 22.8.2007): dolphins and whales in marine life parks, aquariums, oceanaria, and zoos consume consistently high quality nutritional food, receive excellent medical attention and are kept free of debilitating parasites. This is a contrast to the predators, disease, pollution, well-documented commercial fishing and recreational boating dangers, and other stresses they face at sea, resulting in thousands of deaths each year.

• the opinion is that successful captive breeding program eliminates costly field expeditions and animal transports.
• They claim a successful captive breeding program can be sometimes used as a conservation strategy to save some species of marine mammals from extinction. These may allow to maintain a viable gene pool until the habitat can be restored or other reasons for endangerment are eliminated.
• In reality, only one serious attempt has been made to restock a wild population with animals that were born in captivity.
• Such programs should not and cannot be an excuse to ignore our responsibility for conservation and protection of wild populations and their habitat. Captive breeding needs to be carefully managed and evaluated.
• Captive breeding programs require substantial numbers of captive animals to reduce inbreeding. This is improbable, as animals, money and space are very limited. What’s more, the species most often maintained in captivity are not at conservation risk. It is unlikely that zoos and aquaria will contribute to species conservation through captive breeding.

Main problems for capturing and keeping marine mammals

Whales are highly intelligent animals, living in complex social relationships. In captivity they are separated from their families, most often being cruelly incaptured, some individuals very young.

• More than half of the animals brought into captivity die. So for every dolphin you see in a dolphinarium, at least one had to die.
• Most captive animals die within a year or less, many refusing to eat, inspite of being safe from predators and other threats.
• Whales can swim over 100 km a day for hunting prey and playing. Whereas in captivity they are closed in very limited space and cannot move and behave as they would in their natural environment.
• Natural habitat can’t be duplicated in captivity, a concrete pool can never replace the vast ocean home.
• Captivity causes mental, emotional and physical stress which weakens the immune system, thus making the animals more susseptible to different diseases.
• In dolphinariums, when not in shows, animals are forced to dwell in pools much smaller that those used for shows. The sole goal of those facilities is money.
• Many facilities, specially those in less developed countries, run way below minimum standards.
• “Swim with dolphin” and “petting pool” programs are very problematic. Reasons such as “it’s fun,” “cute animals,” or “a spiritual experience” are by far insufficient to justify these practices. Human–dolphin interactions are noisy and stressful. Studies show that the stress associated with these programs may have longterm effects on the dolphins, the first symptoms showed enlarged adrenals. Swim programs are also risky to humans, dolphins are large and strong animals. Some claim that this is therapeutic for some human disorders (depression, autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation), most scientists disagree. It’s very difficult to assess the positive effects of animals on people experimentally. No other animals, including domesticated species, such as dogs, were used as control to measure if they might be as or more effective.
• Very important to consider is whether such programs with captive dolphins help to educate people about these and perhaps other animals as it is claimed. It’s not proved if contacts with dolphins actually change people’s attitudes about them. There is no evidence that interactive captive programs with dolphins are more effective educationally than non-interactive programs.
• No data show there are any significant educational and scientific benefits that help the animals. An average a zoo visitor spends only about 30 sec–2 min at one exhibit and only reads some signs about the animals. In a study, only 4 % of zoo visitors go there to be educated, and no one specifically stated they went to support conservation. It is worrysome that keeping animals in captivity for humans to view presents that it is all right to do so.
• These programs may send the message that it is permissible to take animals from the wild, bring them into captivity and keep them in small tanks where they are bored, deprived, and needlessly die. Another concern is that this may make people expect the same kinds of interactions from free-ranging wild animals. There have been attempts to regulate swimming programs, so far little has been accomplished.
• International agreements regulate capture, but most trade in wild-caught animals now happens from nations with few or no regulations, or the regulations are simply ignored.
• Using animals for military purposes. Sensory abilities of animals are better than those of humans and our tools, so animals are used to detect enemies or weaponry. The ability of dolphins, small whales and sea lions to detect and retrieve objects or people and their ability to make repeated deep dives without suffering make them valuable for military operations. Dolphins have been used for mine detection in wars. It is utmost unethical to train and involve animals in warfare. At least marine mammals are expensive to train and keep, so very few nations use them for such purposes.
• When research is used as an excuse for captivity, there’s a question, to what extent behavior in captivity represents normal behavior. Opportunities come from new technologies being used researching in the wild, such as animal-borne video systems or tags that can record and store vocalizations made by an animal or by surrounding animals. Yet they still claim to learn more from studies of animals in captivity.
• It is important to know that even if wild or captive marine mammals develop social bonds with humans, these animals are socialized or habituated, not domesticated. Domestication does not happen to an individual during their lifetime. It’s a long-term evolutionary process during which humans selectively breed animals for selection of desirable traits. Domesticated, socialized and habituated are not synonyms.
• How dolphins are captured, transported, and kept: animals are often injured and otherwise stressed during capture and transport. Family groups are broken up and the social structure of populations are broken. Poorly read people argue that the lives of captive animals are better, of higher quality, but available data show this claim is not supported. Keeping animals in captivity radically alters behavior patterns that have evolved over millennia. Predation, starvation, and disease are part of what it is to be wild. Is a longer unnatural life in captivity better than a shorter natural life in the wild?
• It is unknown if there are any benefits to the animals themselves when keeping marine mammals in captivity. Because the social and physical environments are impossible to replicate in captivity. The quality of life is compromised. In captivity, evolved patterns of foraging, care giving, migrating and natural patterns of social organization (group size and composition) are lost. Stereotyped behaviors result from conditions of captivity, as do self-mutilation and high levels of aggression. There is higher mortality (spontaneous abortions, still-births, adults) in captive vs wild individuals.

The general understanding is slowly changing for the better

• Various laws and regulations have reduced the collection of wild marine mammals and mostly liminated smaller facilities that did not have the resources to adequately provide for their animals.
• At least they’re becoming aware that studies on captive marine mammals cannot replace field studies. It is still some scientists’ opinion both types of studies (laboratory and field) are necessary to fully describe the biology of a species.
• Captive marine mammals are still the primary source of data for several fields, including cognition, immunology, acoustics and physiology. Technological improvements have allowed acoustic experiments of free-ranging animals. Remarkable sensory and cognitive abilities of dolphins are two of the arguments used against their maintenance in captivity.
• At times, free-ranging marine mammals are ill, injured, or have suffered some accident and require rehabilitation. Zoos and aquaria are the organisations that have the resources, funding and expertise to handle injured or sick animals, so their role in rehabilitation can be useful, even significant.
• Attempts have been made to release captive dolphins back to the area where they came from. There are a few successful attempts, an example: two young male bottlenose dolphins, held captive for 2 years, were released. Both were successfully re-integrated into their social group and showed no interactions with humans.
• Human intrusions have major effects on animals’ behavior even if they’re unintentional. The mere handling of individuals can affect their behavior and acceptance back into a group, as can fitting individuals with various telemetric devices. Tracking or stalking animals can lead to changes in their activity patterns so that they spend more time avoiding humans than feeding or giving care. Research methodology includes trapping, marking, tracking and observing animals, experimentally manipulating social groups, food supply and habitat. Future studies of the effects thods are needed, we must learn about the effects of research methodologies and attempt to avoid them.
• Our ethical obligations require us to learn about the ways in which we influence animals’ lives when we study them in the wild (and in captivity) and what effects captivity has on them. The fragility of nature requires that people work harmoniously, not to destroy nature’s wholeness, goodness and generosity. Separating humans from other animals makes a false dichotomy, the result of which is a distancing that damages, rather than enriches, the possible relationships that can develop among all animal life.
• Physiological research, previously run entirely within captivity, is more possible with innovative or sophisticated techniques in nature. Uninvasive blubber biopsy enables us to get data for toxin loads, reproductive status and energy content and general health within and between populations. Also sloughed skin samples from breaching whales have been successfully collected from the water and genetically sampled for gender, social grouping, and population data.
• A form of tourism by whalewatching has been promoted as a substitute for captive displays, but there are possible collisions with dolphin watching vessels and harassment caused by this activity may threaten the viability of the populations.
• With better access to information about marine mammals in the wild (through excursions, books and videos), it finally became clear that life in a captive facility is nowhere close to a substitute for nature. Some facilities chose not to replace whales or dolphins that died and others decided not to hold cetaceans.

Research on captive animals is being increasingly scrutinized by researchers, universities and various funding agencies. Some relevant questions include: is it ever permissible to keep individuals in captivity? Is the knowledge that is gained by studying captive individuals justified by keeping them in cages or tanks, when more reliable data can be collected in nature?

Source: Encyclopedia of marine mammals