In a country with so much poverty like in Peru it is in a way understandable if people perceive the conditions of Wayra and Yaku in the hotles pool as good, when becomming impressed by the clear and  well filtered water and the dolphins permanent smile. Sadly dolphins do not count with facial muscles in order to express their real emotions. They are forced to smile even when suffering, till their death.
 
We should not become fooled by this appearance. Dolphins live in huge natural territorios swimming as far as sixty kilometers per day. Any pool, no mater how big, will always be too small for dolphins. But it is not only about pool sizes:
 
Dolphins are very curious animals and live in a world full of sounds, underwater landscapes and things to discover. A pool does not offer any of these environmental stimulus. Its four walls – and nothing else. It is known from other species like elefants, lions and bears, that they develop mental disorders because of missing environmental stimulus, causig stereotyped behavior like running back and forth along the fences all the time or running around in eer the same circles.

These stereotyped behaviors are irreversible mental damages that do not even stop when the animal is put in bigger confinements. Dolphins too suffer these problems, when they swimm around in the always same circle surfacing always at the same spot for breathing. These stereotyped circles can also be observed with Wayra and Yaku in the Hotel Los Delfines.
 

Another problem – mainly caused by the lack of environmental stimulus – is the ingestion of particles thrown into the water by visitors. In the German zoo of Duisburg two dolphins died because of ingested staff. A beluga had to be rescued two times by emergency treatments in order to clean its stomach from the isolating rubber, which he chewed out of the pool walls.

 Sign our online-petition against dolphin captivity in the Hotel Los Delfines

 

 

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Hotel Los Delfines – Dolphin jail or conservation project?

Become a member of our Facebook group “Mundo Azul International“

Page author: Stefan Austermühle

 

Read more about dolphin captivity and the Hotel los Delfines at:

• What you can do to free Wayra and Yaku
• Life-capture kills
• Dolphins suffer during transport
• Captive dolphins kill each other
• Captivity makes dolphins sick
• Captivity kills
• No chance for dolphin calves
• Dolphins must be free
• The Hotel Los Delfines
• CILDE – a smoke screen NGO
• Pre-birth stimulation- a dangerous game
• Dolphin therapy
• Does captivity educate our children to care?
• Swimming with captive dolphins is dangerous

 

You can also read the HSUS report “The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity“.

Related links: 

Whale and dolphin species of Peru

Go whale watching in Peru

Go dolphin watching in Peru

Whale watching as an alternative to dolphin killing

Be a dolphin conservation volunteer

Adopt a dolphin

Baptize a dolphin

Stop dolphin slaughter in Peru

Mundo Azuls whale and dolphin research

First aid for stranded dolphins

Stop whaling

Stop dolphin killing in Japan

Stop dolphin killing on Faroe Islands