Marine-mammal facilities are part of a billion-dollar industry built on the suffering of intelligent, social beings who are denied everything that is natural and important to them. Sadly, marine parks open their doors every summer to visitors who watch dolphins, beluga whales, and orcas perform their majestic tricks; they’re amazing, stunning, and very “enjoyable”… However, it might only seem fun to you, the marine animals who are performing the tricks themselves have to disagree, but, the question is, do you know the truth behind all this “joyful fun”? Marine animals in captivity is wrong. It needs to stop if it only means pain and abuse for our entertainments’ sake. I have many convincing reasons to support my opinion, including how captivity causes many health problems in marine mammals, these helpless creatures suffer from boredom, most of these poor innocent creatures face abusive treatment by their caretakers, thus shortening their life span by quite a lot, and marine mammals breed very poorly in captivity with very high infant death rates. So keep an open mind and choose to spend your money on family activities this summer that do not contribute to animal suffering.
For starters, many wonder first where they all come from, or more importantly how they capture them. Dolphins are sometimes purposely injured by the capture teams to force the rest of their pod to stay behind into the trap, due to that dolphins never leave behind sick or injured friends or family members. But most times, capture teams on their boats bang long metal rods against another to scare a pod to shallow waters. Nets are raised at the end of the shallow waters to prevent any from escaping, and nets are dropped over dolphins as they panic in fear and they are lifted onboard. Those who throb back and forth on deck have their backs cut with knives, in fact, if you paid attention to the dolphins and orcas at Marineland or Sea World, you can see, very clearly, the scares on their backs. The dolphins that are thought to be unsuitable for display are either thrown back into the water or have their necks slit to get shipped to slaughterhouses. Dolphins are considered lucky to die from shock, pneumonia or stress when they are tossed back roughly into the waters, rather than having themselves slaughtered apart when still conscious or living a life ahead to those chosen to remain in marine parks for the rest of their miserable lives.
This is where the caretakers come in. Most caretakers don’t actually take the dolphin or orca’s feelings into account. At first sight, you see their caretakers swimming along the side of their marine buddy, performing the tricks to give you a smile on your face, but they have a completely different side behind the performing arena, when they train their marine buddy. They get hit and beat by rods when they don’t do something right, but of course this isn’t always the case. Trainers withhold food from dolphins and orcas in order to force them to learn and perform tricks. They may also isolate these highly social creatures. This treatment, combined with the stress of being taken from their families and housed with strangers, increases their levels of anxiety and aggression. The only time they do get food is during their performances. However, the awards they get have a drug injected into it to prevent things like stress and depression from occurring. Sadly, how the caretakers treat them aren’t the only ways they are abused at the marine parks.

Marine parks are like prisons to marine mammals. They are denied everything that is important and natural to them. While whales and dolphins travel constantly 35 to 100 miles each day marine park tanks are sometimes as small as 24 by 24 feet wide and 6 feet deep. Animals can swim only a few strokes before hitting a wall. Thus they are forced to swim in circles. In the wild, marine mammals are perpetually stimulated by their environment. In captivity, they have only manufactured seaweed. They cannot engage in their natural behaviors nor interact with members of their social group, for it is virtually impossible for captive marine mammals to maintain a family unit. They cannot act on their basic instincts. As a result, many engage in stereotypic behaviors, becoming abnormally aggressive, bored, or depressed. Let me make it simpler for you; A dolphin or whale living in the tanks at marine parks their entire lives is equal to you living in your bathroom for your whole life. While one might expect the absence of pollution and predators to prolong their lives, captive whales and dolphins have very high mortality rates. In the wild, dolphins live between 25 to 50 years, male orcas 30 to 60 years, and female orcas 50 to 90 years. Captive orcas usually die within the first 10 years of captivity, usually before they reach age 21. Most dolphins die within the first two years of captivity. Because death rates are so high (and captive breeding is generally unsuccessful), marine parks continue capturing animals from the wild. Some injuries that cause death are dorsal fins collapsing, also known as drooping fin syndrome, due to low water levels, skin peeling off as a result of over-chlorinated water, eye irritation caused by chlorine, copper sulfate, and other tank chemicals, and eye irritation caused by chlorine, copper sulfate, and other tank chemicals. Stress-related deaths are common. Some animals even commit suicide by crashing into the side of the tank repeatedly, therein shattering their skulls. Others are given anti-depressants so that the audience will not see their despair.
One might have thought by now that marine parks are there for researchers to observe the mammals and for children to experience them, but can researchers actually base their information from captive marine mammals? The answer is obviously no. While marine parks claim that they are educating the public about marine mammals, they are actually presenting false information. Dolphins and orcas cannot behave as they naturally would in an environment as unnatural as a concrete tank. Deprived of the social structure that would normally guide their lives, their behavior is so influenced by stress that it is not an accurate representation of marine life. Thus children do not see the strong bonds between pod members or even the normal daily activities of the animals. Moreover, the message that those who watch these highly intelligent creatures perform tricks receive is that it is acceptable to exploit other living things in spite of the harm such exploitation brings.

In conclusion, marine mammals should definitely not be held in captivity. Ghandi said it best when he mentioned, "The greatness of a nation and its moral process can be measured by the way its animals are treated." In a world where much of nature and the wild has already been lost to us, it is up to us to let these beautiful marine mammals free. Money is the only reason aquariums exist and if they do not have people paying admission prices, they won't survive. Tell people why you refuse to go to aquariums. Educating the public is the only way to help save the animals living in such horrible conditions. Speak for those that cannot speak for themselves.