Calls for the UK to legally ban keeping whales and dolphins in captivity

The UK's last dolphinarium closed its doors for the final time 30 years ago this year.

While it's not actually illegal to keep captive cetaceans in the UK, stringent welfare rules have acted as a de facto ban. And so, since 1993, there have been no whales or dolphins, collectively known as cetaceans, kept in the country.

In light of the anniversary, whale and dolphin campaigners have been calling for the government to outlaw cetacean captivity once and for all, following recent bans around the world.

Margaux Dodds, the co-founder of the NGO Marine Connection, says, ‘With 30 years having passed since the last captive dolphins left our shores, we feel that the time for a ban on the importation and display of cetaceans in the UK is long overdue.’ 

‘Even with the strict regulations in place, there is always the chance that someone would be able to establish a facility if they met the current guidelines. For this reason, we’re urging the government to put in place a ban to ensure any window of opportunity is now firmly closed.’

The call for a ban comes amid ongoing debate over the role of dolphinaria in the modern world, as record numbers of the facilities are built.

How many whales and dolphins are in captivity?

While humans have been putting cetaceans on show for more than a century, the modern era of dolphinaria didn’t come about until the 1950s. It was only at this point that rising public interest, as well as technological developments, made putting whales and dolphins on show viable.

Increasing numbers of facilities over the past 70 years mean today there are now an estimated 3,603 cetaceans kept in captivity. Of these, almost three quarters are bottlenose dolphins, with the rest made up of species including Risso's dolphin, rough-toothed dolphins, orcas and beluga whales.

The highest numbers of captive dolphins are kept in China, followed by Japan and the USA. In Europe, Spain has the highest number of dolphinaria, with an estimated 104 dolphins on display.

As the number of dolphinaria have risen, so too have concerns over the welfare of the cetaceans they contain.

Dr Ellen Coombs, a cetacean researcher at the National Museum of Natural History, says, ‘We can certainly credit captive cetaceans for capturing the hearts of the public who go to see them, providing a sense of connection that many people won’t get from a documentary.’

‘That said, the public and researchers are becoming increasingly aware of the downsides of keeping these animals captive for entertainment.’

The science of cetacean captivity

While concerns have existed over the wellbeing of cetaceans in captivity for some time, scientific research into the issue has generally been lacking.

Though knowledge of how captivity affects cetaceans has since improved, it is still an emerging area of research. The majority of this work has focused on the stress caused by captivity, with handling having a particular impact.

For instance, the experience of wild cetaceans being captured, or captive animals being transported between facilities, shows rapid effects on their body. Levels of aldosterone, a hormone associated with blood pressure and stress, can increase by as much as six times in just three hours after capture.

The effects of cortisol, another stress hormone, are even more immediate. Rapid increases within 10 minutes of handling are linked to a weakening of their immune system, with the animal’s white blood cell count dropping by as much as 60% in the hours following capture.

The stressfulness of handling has knock-on effects once a cetacean arrives in a facility. It's estimated that it takes around two months for dolphins to acclimatise to captivity, while the chance of a cetacean dying in the first year are significantly higher than average.

Though levels of stress from handling die down the longer a cetacean is at a facility, it can be influenced by other factors. For instance, dolphins kept in open pools connected to the ocean were found to have lower cortisol levels than those in closed pools.

Stress is also affected by changes in the dolphin pod’s hierarchy, which can cause individuals to come into conflict. The burgeoning study of cetacean welfare seeks to understand how factors such as these affect the animal’s emotional state.

Dr Isabella Clegg, who specialises in the welfare of captive cetaceans, explains, ‘The best way of assessing a cetacean’s welfare is to use measures that can be directly observed from an animal’s behaviour.’

‘Some of the best indicators of good welfare include high levels of exploratory behaviour and affiliative behaviour with other animals and caretakers, as well as good body condition. Limited signs of these characteristics can suggest poor welfare, as well as other indicators such as abnormal repetitive behaviours.’

Poor welfare in captive cetaceans has been linked with cases of illness, lethargy and even death in some extreme cases. This has spurred a number of studies into the survival of cetaceans in captivity. However, as the majority of research into this topic is funded by organisations who are either proponents or opponents of captivity, similar research can come to very different answers.

For instance, in 2015 two papers were released within months of each other examining orca lifespan in captivity. While a paper led by an author from SeaWorld found no significant difference between captive and wild orcas, another by two former SeaWorld trainers turned researchers suggested that male orcas tended to survive for 15 years less in captivity, and females as much as 30.

While the average life expectancy of captive cetaceans appears to have increased over time, at least in the USA, they are still significantly below the longevity of wild animals. This is one of the factors that has played into changing public opinion over captive whales and dolphins.

Levels of support for captive cetaceans

Public opinion on captive cetaceans tends to depend on where in the world dolphinaria are located.

In China, for instance, dolphinaria are becoming increasingly popular. In 2015, around 39 facilities were in operation, but this more than doubled to 80 by 2019.

In the same time period, the China Cetacean Alliance estimates that the number of captive orca and other dolphin species has increased from around 618 individuals to almost 1100. With dozens more dolphinaria under construction, it's likely that these numbers will rise.

Dolphinaria have also been constructed in the Caribbean and Middle East in recent years, as well as Spain. While it's hard to confirm, the scale of construction in the past decade could mean that more cetaceans are in captivity than ever before, ultimately driven by local public support for the practice.

Direct research into what the public think of cetacean captivity, however, is harder to come by. Similar to investigations of longevity, the outcome of numerous surveys tend to depend on who is running them.

A 2018 study run by a group of scientists tried to minimise potential sources of bias by presenting images to tourists and asking for their opinion. They found that while there was less opposition to bottlenose dolphins in captivity, with the majority of those surveyed seeing them as a source of entertainment, the same wasn’t true of orcas.

Around 61% of the same sample wouldn’t visit a killer whale show, with animal welfare being the most cited concern. This difference reflects a marked shift, at least in the western world, over public opinion on orca captivity in the past decade.

Part of this has been attributed to the 2013 documentary Blackfish, which is widely credited with the growth of anti-captivity sentiment in Europe and the Americas. It highlighted the case of the orca Tilikum, and its involvement in the deaths of three people while in captivity.

In the aftermath of the film’s release, Tilikum's keepers SeaWorld announced that they would stop breeding orcas, with the individuals already in their parks to be the last in captivity. A number of other aquaria also followed suit.

This change in sentiment has also been matched in nations around the world. In 2019 Canada made it illegal to keep cetaceans for entertainment, while Mexico is currently considering a similar proposition.

In addition to direct legislation, the tightening of welfare and import rules in other nations have created bans in all but name.

The general exception to these rules tends to be for the purposes of conservation and scientific research. While some see captivity as a way to reveal important information about the natural world, others believe it is no longer necessary.

What can we learn from captive whales and dolphins?

In the past, studies of captive cetaceans in dolphinaria were one of the very few ways scientists would ever get close to whales and dolphins.

This research has helped to find out important information about their growth, development and reproduction which would be very difficult to study in the wild. It has also allowed experiments testing factors such as bite strength and intelligence to be carried out.

However, while some factors don’t differ between the wild and captivity, others do. Studies of cetacean behaviours like echolocation, for instance, often have to include a caveat on how applicable captive results are to wild animals.

‘While some dolphinaria tout themselves as places for research, most of what could be learned from these animals will not reflect how wild cetaceans live,’ Margaux argues. ‘It's not scientifically useful.’

There are also issues over the process of research in captivity. Ellen says that it can be hard to replicate any study carried out in a tank and make it applicable to studies in the wild because there are many factors which are hard to control, especially if an enclosure hasn’t been designed with research in mind.

‘With improvements in field research methods such as suction tagging, drone use and non-invasive DNA sampling, we can now study everything from heart rate and physiology to social structure and play without the need for captivity,’ Ellen explains.

‘The main thing we have learnt from studying captive cetaceans is that these animals are not suited to life in captivity.’

Where captivity may be able to help, however, is rehabilitation. One of the most notable examples is J.J, a grey whale calf that was kept at SeaWorld San Diego after being rescued from beaching.

Though her burgeoning size meant the calf was released after a year, this allowed a great deal of research to be carried out. With other research showing that cetaceans can reacclimatise to the wild after short periods of captivity, the rehabilitation of stranded animals could offer the opportunity to study whales and dolphins without jeopardising their future.

The future of captive cetaceans

Beyond the release of rehabilitated animals, some people are looking to the release of all whales and dolphins kept around the world. Following changes in public opinion, and some facilities closing altogether, it’s become more important than ever to think about the animals' future.

 'Some of the animals living in dolphinaria now are only in their 20s, and might live for another 30 years or more,' Margaux says. 'It's not an issue that will disappear overnight, but one that we need to think about now.'

It’s not as simple as simply releasing the animals into the sea. Not all animals are suited to be released into the wild, and the success of previous attempts has been mixed.

‘Only cetaceans that were wild caught less than 10 years ago, can be released with conspecifics in native waters, and have undergone a careful acclimatisation process have a chance of surviving in the wild,’ Isabella says.

‘When cetaceans that don’t meet these criteria have been released, the animals have either not survived, disappeared, or have ended up begging at boats and areas with people.’

The difficulties of wild release mean that interest has turned to the concept of ‘seaside sanctuaries’. These are sea pens that allow the cetaceans to live as natural a life as possible in a large habitat, while remaining under supervision by professionals.

One of the first is the Sea Life Trust’s sanctuary in Iceland, where two beluga whales are being gradually acclimatised to the ocean. They’re set to be followed by cetaceans from The Miami Seaquarium and Baltimore National Aquarium, which both have plans to release their animals into purpose-built facilities.

Sanctuaries are, however, still in their early stages. It will take many years of research and experience to find out the best way to look after the cetaceans in their care, and there will be risks involved.

‘Caring for cetaceans in this way isn’t something that’s been done before, and welfare improvements may not linearly increase in the early stages,’ Isabella says. ‘The first cetaceans sent to sanctuary projects will therefore be test subjects in a sense, and the risks will need to be explained to stakeholders and the public to maintain support.’

Cetacean campaigners are also wary that some facilities could become a new form of dolphinaria under a different guise.

‘If cetaceans are being retired into a bona fide sanctuary, this should mean very little human contact apart from professionals required to ensure their welfare,’ Margaux says. ‘There should be no public contact or interaction with the animals, except perhaps through live webcams to an information centre a suitable distance away.’

For some whales and dolphins, however, even a sanctuary may be a step too far, and so they may need to remain in their current home for the rest of their lives. Ensuring high welfare for these animals will be important, which could involve giving them more stimulating enrichment activities or more natural enclosures.

Whether dolphinaria should have a future beyond this point depends very much on the public. While whales and dolphins certainly capture our hearts and minds, it’s up to us to decide whether we want to keep them captive.