A. Bottlenose dolphins in the Fourni island complex
The bottlenose dolphin is one of the four dolphin species we study in the Greek seas. Yet it is also the species that, even today, continues to suffer at the hands of humans through commercial exploitation in dolphinaria around the world, where more than 3,000 bottlenose dolphins remain in captivity.
Bottlenose dolphins have evolved to travel 40–100 nautical miles every day and to dive to depths exceeding 200 metres, where they locate and catch the fish and marine invertebrates on which they feed.
One of their most remarkable adaptations is the way they sleep. Dolphins rest one hemisphere of their brain at a time, allowing them to continue breathing consciously. To do this, they swim slowly through the open sea alongside the other members of their pod.
In captivity, they are deprived of even one of their most fundamental biological needs: the ability to sleep naturally.
B. Bottlenose dolphins in captivity at Attica Zoological Park
Let us not forget that, with our continued tolerance, these dolphins remain confined within the nightmarish environment of a concrete tank. It is difficult to see this as anything other than an incomprehensible form of punishment inflicted upon these highly intelligent marine mammals.
In captivity, they are fed thawed dead fish and are forced to live in the same chlorinated water in which they defecate. The water is often too warm during the summer and too cold during the winter, unlike the sea, where seasonal temperature fluctuations are relatively small.
The contrast is impossible to ignore: instead of travelling tens of nautical miles each day and diving hundreds of metres into the sea, captive dolphins are typically confined to pools only about 3.5 metres deep, where the maximum distance they can swim in a straight line is only a few dozen metres.
History will judge us harshly for allowing this abuse to continue in the name of profit and “entertainment” – not only those who profit from it, but also all of us who choose to tolerate it.
