Dolphinaria-Free Europe believes in using scientific evidence to provide you with fact-based answers to your questions.
How many countries/facilities hold cetaceans captive in Europe?
You can find a breakdown of how many cetaceans are kept in captivity in each country on our map of Europe here.
What species of cetaceans are kept in captivity in Europe?
There are currently 4 species of cetaceans kept in captivity in Europe: beluga whales, bottlenose dolphins, harbour porpoises and orcas (killer whales). You can read more about these species in our fact files here.
What countries in the world do not hold cetaceans captive?
Please see our maps on worldwide cetacean captivity here.
Where do captive cetaceans come from?
Most captive cetaceans alive today were born and bred in captivity, although there are still cetaceans in facilities who were captured before laws and regulations prohibited such captures in various regions or were imported from countries that still allow it. The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) has banned its members from participating in the trade of wild-caught dolphins in drive hunts (conducted primarily in Japan), but drive hunts still supply non-WAZA facilities and a few other jurisdictions, including Cuba, still allow live cetacean captures for commercial display.
Breeding programmes in most captive facilities are designed to avoid inbreeding, but many calves don’t survive more than a few months and many facilities have limited to no success at captive breeding.
Aren’t most captive dolphins rescued?
No. Some are, but certainly ‘most’ are not. Several facilities participate in rescue and rehabilitation of free-ranging cetaceans found debilitated or stranded and, if any of the animals they rescue cannot be returned to the wild, they have put them on display. DFE opposes the permanent captivity of rescued cetaceans, including those who are deemed unreleasable – you can read our statement on this here. Data shows most captive dolphins today have been bred into captivity rather than rescued and those sourced from the wild were usually deliberately captured for the purpose of display.
Can captive dolphins return to their natural habitat?
Although there have been successful releases of captive dolphins, this has to be judged on a case by case basis.
Are there any facilities that are okay to visit?
We do not rate facilities. We oppose the keeping of cetaceans in captivity, especially in commercial facilities, as profit is always going to be their main motive. Although such facilities do need to maintain welfare standards, we do not recommend any facility holding cetaceans in captivity for public display, as even legal welfare standards are generally inadequate. Many captive facilities claim to be ‘sanctuaries’ when in fact they are not. Authentic sanctuaries adhere to guidelines that commercial facilities do not follow (see Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries Cetacean Guidelines). Dolphinaria-Free Europe has developed a guide on the general criteria for sanctuary sites and operations which be found here.
DFE always recommends seeing dolphins and whales in their natural habitat. If possible, it is best to view from land, to avoid any disturbance; however, in some areas there are reputable companies who offer boat-based dolphin and whale watching excursions. If you opt for a boat trip, just make sure you identify an ethical company that follows a code of conduct or regulations (see, e.g., the International Whaling Commission’s Whale Watching Handbook), does not feed the wildlife and highlights to customers that there is no guarantee to see cetaceans. Free-ranging wildlife is unpredictable, but this is very much part of the thrill of going whale/dolphin watching, when you know if you see these animals you are seeing them in their natural habitat, behaving as they normally do.
Are dolphins safer in the wild than in captivity?
Comparing ‘safety’ of the animals in the wild and in captivity is an apples and oranges comparison. There are threats facing cetaceans in the wild, but there are multiple stressors acting on them in captivity. Given that lifespan is at best the same as and at worst shorter in captivity, arguably those stressors are worse for these animals than the threats they deal with in their natural habitat. Please see here for wild/captive comparisons.
Aren’t captive facilities educational? Don’t they complete research to help their wild counterparts?
Many dolphinariums claim their cetacean encounters and shows are educational; however, most feature circus-style tricks, made to entertain rather than educate and, in general, do not reflect the way cetaceans behave in the wild. Performances feature extremely loud music, at decibel levels equivalent to rock concerts. Cetaceans are trained to execute flamboyant and unnatural tricks, often including props (such as hoops), in return for thawed fish (which lose nutritional value when frozen). They are trained to splash the audience with their flukes or by breaching (throwing their whole body in the air and landing on the water’s surface), and, in swim-with-dolphin encounters, to pull visitors around a pool by their dorsal fins. In some facilities, small children are placed into a small dinghy and a dolphin uses its rostrum to hold onto the rope tied to the bow and pull the boat around the performance enclosure. None of this is natural behaviour and some of it is dangerous for the trainers and customers.
In recent years, captive facilities have been required by the EU to fulfil a certain level of research and conservation as part of their business, which has resulted in some facilities establishing a rescue and rehabilitation sector. However, this part of ‘conservation’ can be abused and misconstrued. For example, the orca Morgan was ‘rescued’ in 2010 off the Netherlands and deemed unreleasable, but now performs regularly in shows at Loro Parque, Tenerife. She became pregnant by a captive-born male descended from an entirely separate population (so her daughter, who did not survive long, was a genetic hybrid), even though her transfer authorization from the Netherlands to Spain did not include an option to breed her.
Life in captivity compared to the wild for a cetacean is so drastically different that the results of any research undertaken on captive individuals is difficult to apply to their wild counterparts.
What is Dolphin-Assisted Therapy and is it ethical?
Dolphin-Assisted Therapy (DAT) involves a patient entering the water with dolphins as a form of treatment for physical and mental health conditions. Many facilities charge fees, claiming DAT effectively treats autism, depression, and other conditions. However, studies on DAT have demonstrated there is little to no benefit to humans who participate, or if there is, it is no different from the benefits of other animal-assisted therapy using puppies or kittens. Furthermore, few facilities offering this type of therapy publish scientific papers or indeed are regulated by an official body. DAT is merely another form of exploitation, but this time not only of dolphins, but of vulnerable people.