Tell Hersheypark not to replace its dolphin show!

Entertainment Department
Hersheypark
100 West Hersheypark Drive
Hershey, PA 17033

To Whom It May Concern:

We have recently learned that the two dolphins that you have rented from Marine Animal Productions each season for Hersheypark have been moved to the Bahamas and will no longer be leased by your facility.  We am writing to encourage you not to replace them.

At an amusement park such as Hersheypark, dolphins are obviously not a main attraction, nor are they what draws crowds to your facility.  These animals are not a vital component of a visit to Hersheypark.  Keeping these dolphins is unnecessary, and the entertainment of a few tourists cannot justify their suffering.

In the wild, dolphins live in very tight social structures, and certain species never leave their mothers.  When captured for aquariums, young animals are ripped from their families, with many calves being taken away from their lactating mothers.  They often panic during capture, striking at the net, becoming entangled, and drowning.  Once in captivity, dolphins die at a faster rate than their wild counterparts. 

Dolphins have extremely sensitive hearing.  While we generally perceive the world with our vision, dolphins “see” through sound, and they are able to use a special type of sonar known as echolocation.  Concrete tanks act as echo chambers, reverberating any and all sounds in and around the tank.  At Hersheypark, the constant noise from loud thrill rides, noisy visitors, screaming passengers on the nearby Storm Runner coaster, filters, pumps, and a variety of other sources can be overwhelming to such an acoustically-oriented animal.

The current Aquatheatre tank is also extremely small and completely inadequate for any marine mammal, let alone two dolphins and two sea lions.  In the wild, dolphins can easily travel fifty miles every day, regularly diving to depths of over several hundred feet, and yet at Hersheypark, they can swim only forty feet before coming to a wall.  At only ten feet deep, the tank has barely enough water to cover these dolphins, which average eight to twelve feet in length.  Such tiny enclosures can never properly accommodate these intelligent, free-ranging animals.

In captivity, there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that dolphins consistently suffer from stress, with about half of all captive dolphins developing ulcers.  Stress can also suppress their immune systems and lead to changes in basic blood biochemistry, leaving them susceptible to disease and premature death.  Show routines are monotonous, and the majority of the day is spent outside of performances.  The animals have little to entertain themselves in a small, concrete tank, a major problem for such a social, active species.  There is also evidence that transporting dolphins causes severe stress.  Since the dolphins you use are frequently shipped in order to accommodate your seasonal schedule, they are subject to great amounts of stress, and such a situation is not in the best interest of the animals.

We cannot condone the suffering that your company places on these incredible animals.  If you choose not to display dolphins in the future, we commend you for your steps toward preventing the needless suffering of these animals.

Should you desire to learn more about the problems with maintaining dolphins in captivity, we would be happy to provide you with an extensive report the author recently completed, along with many other resources.

Thank you for your time, and we hope you reconsider the dolphin show at Hersheypark.

Sincerely,