Does captivity of dolphins help dolphin conservation?
No. In order to justify the capture and confinement of dolphins, the dolphin captivity industry and the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums (AMMPA) present the dolphins as “ambassadors” of their own species and maintain that captive dolphin displays serve the purpose of being educational. They are not in this business for the money, they say. They want us to believe that they capture and confine dolphins in order that the paying audience learns to appreciate dolphins and, based on that, grows motivated to contribute to the protection of dolphins in nature. But how can the spectators learn anything about the true nature of dolphins when the captive dolphins are trained in unnatural behaviors, mere circus tricks that these once-wild, opportunistic foragers of the oceans are performing for food rewards of dead fish? And how are the spectators supposed to become aware of the importance of preserving dolphins in nature when the dolphins they are watching have been either stolen fr
