Dolphin Lovers Put Pressure on Singapore Resort to Release Captive Dolphins

The waters of the Solomon Islands are some of the most beautiful in the world, full of diverse marine life. Sadly, 27 wild bottlenose dolphins were captured from paradise and sent to live a life in captivity.

Two dolphins have already died and, statistically, many more of the remaining 25 dolphins will die, too. Dolphin hunts are incredibly stressful and inhumane to these intelligent and social marine mammals. Thirty to eighty percent of dolphins die during the capture; some drown or die from injuries sustained in the hunt, and others die later due to stress and trauma.

After being hunted down and taken from their home, the dolphins were sent to the Philippines, where they're being held in pens and trained to entertain people. Their final destination will be Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore. The facility is scheduled to be completed later this year.

Several advocacy groups have reached out to Resorts World Sentosa, asking them to release the dolphins back into the waters of the Solomon Islands. The Save the World's Saddest Dolphins campaign has been launched in Singapore by the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society, or ACRES. In the first week of their campaign, they obtained over 6,000 supporters. They've reached out to the media, created a musical video and will deliver a petition to Resorts World.

The dolphins are prime candidates to be released back into the waters of the Solomon Islands, and Ric O'Barry, the marine mammal specialist for Earth Island Institute, has offered to rehabilitate the "Sentosa 25" to ensure their success.

Once a trainer for the dolphins who starred in the television series Flipper, O'Barry has seen firsthand what captivity does to dolphins. Once he realized that capturing and subjecting dolphins to a life of frustration, loneliness, stress and boredom for profit was, to put it simply, absolutely wrong, O'Barry left behind training dolphins for tv and dedicated his life to fighting against dolphins in captivity and rehabilitating captive dolphins to release them back into the wild.

Resorts World Sentosa doesn't want to stop at 25 dolphins. The hotel feels that more dolphins should be captured from all over the world and brought to their facility to "study and breed them" in the name of conservation.

Dolphins in captivity behave nothing like wild dolphins, and ACRES says that if the resort truly cares about the conservation of dolphins, it should concentrate its efforts on establishing why wild dolphins are disappearing from our oceans.

Resorts World Sentosa isn't immune to public outcry. They care about their image. Two years ago, they had planned to create a whale shark exhibit, but because of animal lovers who spoke out against it, the resort abandoned the plan in order to save their reputation.

Sign the petition to join over 80,000 others who have asked Resorts World Sentosa to free the Sentosa 25 and help end the practice of capturing wild dolphins.

Photo credit: spencer77