Although not a direct European situation, Dolphinaria-Free Europe is adding its support to stop a permit application by The Chicago Zoological Society’s Brookfield Zoo to import three bottlenose dolphins from Dolphin Quest Bermuda to Coral World (in the U.S. Virgin Islands) and/or to Brookfield Zoo (in Chicago).
The application put forward lacks precise information on factors that are central to the welfare of these dolphins. Coral World is located in Water Bay, St Thomas – an area so polluted that in 2018 it failed to meet the Clean Water Act standards and deemed unsafe for human swimmers 40% of the time and recently failed this test again by a significant margin. Brookfield Zoo is an indoor tank which would create other problems for dolphins which have spent their first years in a sea pen.
Dolphinaria-Free Europe has contacted the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) expressing our concern over the plans, requesting that the permit to be denied.