We are asking Tui to stop selling, offering or promoting any dolphin shows or experiences.
Despite numerous travel companies ceasing ticket sales to venues with captive dolphins, Tui are still refusing to do so, making money from the suffering of dolphins.
Dolphins are captured from the wild and sold to parks around the world. They are torn away from their families and the dolphins deemed less attractive are slaughtered and sold as meat. Many of the dolphins destined for marine parks die in transit. The ones that survive are forced to perform degrading and pointless tricks to receive food.
Dolphins are highly intelligent and in the wild they live in large family groups, and swim up to 60 miles each day, but in captivity, they are confined in chemically-treated concrete pools, 200,000 times smaller than their natural home. Captive dolphins are often housed in isolation, or in incompatible groups, and because of the cramped conditions of their enclosures, they're unable to escape conflicts. They suffer immense mental and physical stress as a result. This stress can weaken their immune systems and make them prone to disease. Many dolphins develop painful conditions, such as stomach ulcers, and some die prematurely.
Many illnesses can be passed from dolphins to human visitors, including viral, fungal, and bacterial infections such as salmonella. People have also been bitten and sustained broken bones during their swimming sessions.
Captive-bred dolphins don't have it any better. The experience of a dolphin in captivity - whether captive-bred or wild-caught - is similarly poor. The claim that captive dolphins are semi-domesticated or that a captive-bred dolphin is less of a predatory wild animal due to its birth in captivity has no scientific basis. Captive-bred dolphins are not domesticated and have the same inherent needs as wild-born animals. All dolphins in captivity are prevented or impeded from learning and expressing natural behaviours. Captive facilities routinely remove calves from mothers at an early age, before many essential life lessons can be taught. For instance, many calves are removed from their mothers before they learn how to properly nurse and thus are less able (or in some cases completely unable) to nurse their own offspring, leading to an increase in infant mortality.
Please help to stop dolphin exploitation by signing and sharing this petition today.
Humans can also be harmed by captive dolphins:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7740263/British-girl-ten-left-bloodied-bruised-two-dolphins-attack-Mexico.html
For more information, please visit: https://www.dolphinfreedom.net/ and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h46hPCTCzns
Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
