Halt plans for a dolphin exhibit in Cleveland!

Cleveland Aquarium Incorporated
P.O. Box 5368
Willowick, OH 44095

Dear Cleveland Aquarium Incorporated:

Congratulations on your new mission to open an aquarium in Cleveland!  Aquariums certainly have their place in educating the public about marine life, and from your descriptions, yours will be an excellent display.

We are writing due to our concern over your plan to keep dolphins at the Cleveland Aquarium.  While the idea of a non-profit aquarium is great, we cannot support keeping cetaceans there.

Cetaceans, perhaps more than any other animal, are particularly ill-suited to captivity.  No matter how much fundraising you receive for your facility, or how large a tank you build, no human can ever replicate the ocean well enough for such a wide-ranging and intelligent species.  In the wild, dolphins can easily travel more than fifty miles every day, something that can never be accommodated in manmade facilities.  Keeping dolphins at the Cleveland Aquarium also does not follow your goal of displaying animals in a “naturalistic habitat, especially our native aquatic life forms,” as a dolphin exhibit would be neither naturalistic nor would it teach the people of Cleveland about the local habitat.

Since cetaceans are incredibly acoustically-oriented, life in a tank is especially difficult.  The concrete, glass, and metal surfaces of most tanks cause any sounds to reverberate through the pool.  At indoor facilities, an additional echoing effect is found in the building itself.  Noisy visitors, pumps, filters, loud music at dolphin shows, and a variety of other sounds are compounded, causing the noise to reach extreme levels.  Extraneous noise discourages vocalization and echolocation, two very important components of a dolphin’s life.

On a financial note, cetaceans are notoriously difficult to maintain.  At an inland location such as Cleveland, manufacturing large amounts of saltwater would be very costly.  Cetaceans are also extremely expensive to purchase, and the extensive veterinary care can be costly.  Most dolphins in captivity experience a great deal of stress, and about 50% develop ulcers.  Their immune systems are suppressed by the constant stress in aquariums, making them very susceptible to disease.  Since dolphins die easily from these complications, you may face additional expenses by continuously replacing animals which have died.  As dolphins are so expensive, the money saved from excluding them would allow you to enhance other parts of the Cleveland Aquarium.

When producing artificial saltwater, any deviation from the chemical makeup of the ocean can lead to very negative effects on dolphins, including problems with osmoregulation and chemical balance.  Chlorine can also be very damaging to dolphins; while used by many facilities to reduce pathogenic contamination, it can cause severe eye problems, including blindness, irritated and peeling skin, a high risk of respiratory inflammation, and even high infant mortality rates.

While you may have intentions to make a very educational dolphin show, there is significant evidence that the visiting public comes to see dolphins to be entertained, not educated.  This is no fault of your own, but a truth you must face when considering a dolphin exhibit.  Do you want these animals to be viewed as entertaining commodities by the public?  Holding dolphin shows, which naturally have a circus-like atmosphere, may challenge the educational nature found throughout the rest of the aquarium.  Indeed, there is a distinct irony in removing these intelligent animals from the wild or breeding them for our own purposes, training them to do tricks, and claiming that it teaches people to respect nature.

By keeping dolphins, you also subject yourself to negative media attention.  While few people question the captivity of fish and invertebrates, there are numerous organizations dedicated to ending the captivity of cetaceans.  Despite your best efforts, there would always be people who would reflect negatively on your aquarium should you keep dolphins. 

Should you desire to learn more about the problems with maintaining cetaceans in captivity, we would be happy to provide you with an extensive research report the author has recently completed, as well as many additional resources.

Thank you for your time, and we hope you reconsider your plans to keep cetaceans at the new Cleveland Aquarium.  If you decide to eliminate the dolphin exhibit, we commend your efforts towards ensuring the future of these incredible animals.

Sincerely,