A baby dolphin died during a show in a park, after being forced to perform for the public despite being only 9 days old
Yet another sad story of animal exploitation comes from Bulgaria: a 9-day-old baby dolphin died during a show in a water park due to an overload of work.
The little one is died during a performance in Varna Dolphinarium, as reported by visitors who witnessed the death of the cub live.
Witnesses said they saw the animal's lifeless body in the water and noticed strange behavior from the other dolphins, who suddenly stopped playing and jumping during the show.
The owners of the dolphinarium denied what happened and they assured that the baby's death did not happen during a show. The biologist Tsvetan Stanev, an employee of the facility, stated that no dolphins have ever performed before the age of six months: the cub and the mother did not participate in the exhibitions since the young born cannot be separated from the mother for at least six months after the birth.
Despite the reassurances, it remains there concern about how animals are treated in this park, where there are higher death rates among dolphins than in other similar parks: in the last five years, five deaths have already been reported.
This probably means the conditions do not even meet the minimum standards for dolphin care, animals that suffer greatly from life in captivity due to their socially complex nature which requires the freedom of the sea.
Following the puppy's death, animal rights activists launched one petition to ask for the immediate closure of the park and some petitioners commented that they have seen with their own eyes the terrible way animals are treated in the facility.
So even if the puppy had not died during an exhibition, it is clear that there is a problem related to the conditions in which animals are kept in the Bulgarian dolphinarium: a problem that unites all the parks where specimens forced to live in captivity for the amusement of the visitors and for the economic interests of the owners of these anachronistic tourist attractions.
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Tatiana Maselli
