Category Dolphins
After 20 Years in a South Korean Marine Park, 2 Dolphins are Going Back to the Wild! | One Green Planet
Michelle Neff
April 24, 2017
We have some very exciting news to share! After a staggering 20 years living at the Seoul Grand Park aquarium, Geumdeung, and Daepo, two bottlenose dolphins will be sent back to the oceans in July. The two dolphins were captured by a fishery net near Jeju Island in 1997 and 1998, respectively, with their names coming from the villages where they were first found. Geumdeung and Daepo were bounced between various dolphin performance theaters around Jeju Island until they were transported to Seoul Grand Park in 1999 and 2002. The pair have been there ever since.
According to the Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending marine animal captivity, the decision to move Geumdeung and Daepo came from Mayor Park Won-soon. The ground-breaking movie “The Cove” greatly influenced the mayor’s decision to rehabilitate and release the two dolphins, even going as far as to pay for the entire project.
After being taken from the wild and then forced to perform meaningless tricks for people, Geumdeung and Daepo are now finally going back home. Wonderful news!
The decision to move the dolphins back into their home is a solution to increase the wild dolphin population near the Jeju shores. Geumdeung and Daepo are around 23 to 26 years old and are still diagnosed as healthy enough to procreate, the average Indo-Pacific Bottlenose dolphin living up to 30-25 years old.
The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries plans to carry out training sessions for Geumdeung and Daepo so they will adapt back into the wild. Once they become used to their local surroundings and are able to catch prey, the two dolphins will be transported back to the Jeju island in May and then will return to the ocean around July. With dolphins having complex communication skills, advanced mental capacity, and genuine self-awareness, we are thrilled to learn that Geumdeung and Daepo will soon return to where they belong: the wild.
No animal should have to suffer for the sake of our entertainment. Please never visit or otherwise support a marine park like SeaWorld or Marineland. Instead, support organizations like Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project and Sea Shepherd’s Cove Guardians both of which are dedicated to stopping marine animal captivity. 🐬
URGENT Petition: Dolphins At Risk of Death in Drift Gillnets – The Animal Rescue Site
Petition: SAY NO TO DOLPHINS AT THE KUWAIT SCIENTIFIC CENTER
Stop Mutilating Pink Dolphins for Fish Bait
Pink dolphins are having their fins cut off by fishermen to use as bait, leading to painful, excruciating deaths. This inhumane practice cannot be allowed to continue. Help save these creatures from cruel deaths by mutilation.
Save Innocent Dolphins Trapped in Small, Chlorinated Tanks
A museum holds several dolphins in small, dirty tanks with chlorine levels so high that some of the dolphins cannot even open their eyes. Sign this petition and demand that these incredibly sensitive and intelligent animals are moved to a sea pen or an accredited sanctuary immediately.
Source: Save Innocent Dolphins Trapped in Small, Chlorinated Tanks
Urgent Action Needed to Stop the Import of Taiji Dolphins to Korean Marine Park | One Green Planet
Some Good News…
Petition ~ Save Australia Dolphins
15,000 lives have been killed by sharks nets!
https://actionsprout.io/CF26E3/initial
4 Dolphins Bust Out of ‘Recreational Facility’ Where They Were Being Held in Taiji, Japan | One Green Planet
4 Dolphins Bust Out of ‘Recreational Facility’ Where They Were Being Held in Taiji, Japan
Michelle Neff
January 5, 2017
Can you imagine being a dolphin and being held in prison for doing nothing wrong? You spend all your days behind bars with other miserable jail mates. Sometimes they become aggressive towards you due to their own frustrations of being so tightly confined. Why have your freedoms been taken away? Because you provide so-called “public entertainment.”
Unfortunately, for many dolphins and other cetaceans, this is their reality. But at least four dolphins are taking matters into their own fins. In an awesome feat, four dolphins have escaped from a recreational facility named DolphinBase in the Japanese town of Taiji. Taiji is internationally known for the cruel dolphin hunts that take place there every year between September and March, where large numbers of wild dolphins are herded into a small cove. From there, they are either slaughtered for their meat or hand-picked for captive facilities, such as DolphinBase. The four dolphins who escaped are between three to five years old and were being trained to swim with tourists in the facility’s seaside pens. Sadly, they had been held captive for more than six months.
The four dolphins escaped after staff at DolphinBase found their nets slashed. Go dolphins, go!
Local police don’t know who was behind the incident. But unfortunately, three of the dolphins are back in their enclosure, while one dolphin remains missing. We hope he swims far, far away!
It’s no wonder these four dolphins jumped on the opportunity to escape DolphinBase the moment they were given the chance to. Dolphins, which are second in intelligence behind humans, are one of the few animals that can learn new things throughout their lives, and then teach those new skills to their young. Even though it may seem like a neat idea, please don’t swim with dolphins and urge your friends and family to do the same. Not supporting marine parks and learning why there is hope for the demise of the captivity industry are also great steps.
Join the #EmptyTheTanks movement on social media and share this article.
Petition · Sign: Free the Dolphins Forced to Jump Through Fire · Change.org
Petition · Urge SeaWorld to Denounce #IMATA For Supporting Taiji Dolphin Capture and Slaughter · Change.org
Petition · David Ige: Tell Atlantis NO to their Captive Dolphin Exhibit in Oahu by Expanding Maui’s 2002 Decision to Ban Captive Whale and Dolphin Shows! · Change.org
End Japan’s Deadly Taiji Dolphin Hunt
Hundreds of dolphins are being killed and butchered at an annual hunt in Japan. Sign the petition to demand an end to this barbaric practice.
Petition: Dolphin trainers: Help stop the Taiji dolphin slaughter!
Petition: Speak Out for Rio’s Endangered Dolphins | Global Justice Ecology Project
Video: Dolphin snatches woman’s iPad at SeaWorld | WPMT FOX43
ORLANDO, Fla. — In a hilarious and unfortunate video, a SeaWorld Orlando parkgoer captured the video of a dolphin reaching out of its tank and snatching a visitor’s iPad.
Editor’s note: Video is loud. Mature language can be heard at the very end of this clip. Viewer discretion advised.
WTVT reports that season ticket holder Kuadiel Gomez caught the incident on video and still cannot believe it happened.
“That dolphin just lunged and reached the lady, which was unbelievable,” said Gomez
Well, this should teach guests to keep their valuables away from the touch tank.
“As you can see, the dolphins can reach your loose items,” a Sea World worker can be heard saying.
Petition: Tell Brazil to go for the gold and be a champion for the Guiana dolphin!
petition: Mississippi leaders: Don’t Use BP Restoration Dollars for a Dolphin Prison!, Mississippi
Petition · Disney World: Retire Your Dolphins. · Change.org
petition: DMM: Retire Bucky, the Elderly Dolphin With Cancer Forced to Carry Tourists on His Back!, Australia
Retire Cancer Stricken Elderly Dolphin From Marine Park
An elderly dolphin in poor health is being forced to perform shows daily and drag people across pools in a marine park. Demand that Bucky the dolphin be retired to an accredited sanctuary.
Source: Retire Cancer Stricken Elderly Dolphin From Marine Park
Petition update · End Dolphin Captivity in Australia · Change.org
Wake Bali Dolphins: Free four wild dolphins contained in a tiny resort pool
by Craig Brokensha · 447,996 supporters
Petition update
End Dolphin Captivity in Australia
Craig Brokensha
Sydney, Australia
Apr 26, 2016 — It’s been brought to my attention that Dolphin Marine Magic at Coffs Harbour in Australia is also keeping dolphins in a small chlorinated pool as a tourist attraction.
A baby dolphin within this facility died a few weeks ago as a result of its stomach filling up with litter.
Please help by signing and sharing this petition to bring the captive dolphin industry in Australia to an end.. https://enddolphincaptivity.afd.org.au/sign
Stop Hammerhead Sharks in Adelaide Nightclub
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Wake Bali Dolphins: Free four wild…
Dolphin Escapes Captivity, Finds Her Family In The Wild And Has A Baby
In an unprecedented tale of survival and hope against all odds, a formerly captive dolphin named Sampal has given birth to a healthy calf after finding her own way back to her family and freedom in the open ocean.
Sampal’s story began in 2009, when she was accidentally netted by fishermen off the coast of South Korea. Rather than returning her back to the water, as the law dictates, those who caught her instead did the unthinkable — they sold her to a local marine park featuring dolphin shows.
It’s there that, for nearly four years, Sampal languished in a tiny pool where she was forced to perform tricks for entertainment. Though thoroughly robbed of any semblance of a natural life, she evidently never stopped longing for her life in the wild.
Fortunately, reprieve from her captivity came in 2013 when, at the behest of animal activists, a Korean high court ordered Sampal be set free. Along with other wild-caught dolphins held captive, she was moved to a sea pen to begin months of rehabilitation to ready her for release.
Sampal, however, had no interest in waiting. Months ahead of schedule, she slipped through a tear in the pen and disappeared into the ocean beyWikiped
Though there were concerns initially that Sampal was not yet reequipped with the skills needed to survive at sea, those were soon quelled. Just days after escaping, she was spotted 60 miles away, swimming with a pod believed to be her original family.
Sampal was finally home — but her story doesn’t end there.
Last month, a team from two Korean universities started seeing her again, only this time she was in the company of a calf.
“We have spotted Sampal and her baby swimming in a mother-calf position many times during the recent three weeks,” researcher Jang Soo-jin told the news agency Yonhap. “Strict criteria applied show that they are parent and child.”
This is believed to be the first time a dolphin freed from captivity has gone on to start a family in the wild, and it need not be the last.
While Sampal’s offspring will hopefully never know the sad life her mother had to endure, there are countless others like her in marine parks around the globe — all eager to overcome imprisonment to forge their own new legacies of freedom.
petition: A Big “NO” to Captive Dolphins in Arizona!
Petition · David Ige: End Dolphin Captivity in Hawaii. · Change.org
Petition · Support Animals: End SeaWorld’s dolphin breeding program! · Change.org
Free All Captive Whales and Dolphins in Europe
Intelligent marine mammals, such as bottlenose dolphins and orca whales, are forced to perform for audiences all around the world. The European Union is one of the worst offenders and holds little respect for these amazing animals. Urge the EU to finally free its captive cetaceans.
