When I was young, I went to Dolphin Camp. More than anything in the world, I wanted to work with marine mammals in some capacity. It doesn’t seem like an odd dream, a young girl obsessed with dolphins isn’t out of the ordinary in our society, due to the media propagation of the innate kindness and romanticism of bottlenose dolphins.

The camp I went to was located in the Dolphin Research Center. DRC is not Sea World: they house bottlenose dolphins and California Sea Lions, and keep their mammals in open ocean pens that are mapped out by netting that the dolphins could break through if they really wanted. The tide and the clarity of the water change, and the holes in the nets are large enough to let fish into the pens that the dolphins can hunt if they so choose.

During the camp my group was having a discussion with the founder of DRC, Armando “Mandy” Rodriguez. One of the most intelligent, knowledgeable and thoughtful people I’ve ever met, he recounted to us his opinions on “some of the other” marine mammal facilities in the US.

Mandy narrated how he had been recently trying to work with the other aquariums to at least get some form of stimulation in the tanks for the mammals. After all, if you were a dolphin in the Baltimore Aquarium, all you would see is white. That’s all that the tanks are, really, white cement and viewing windows for the public.

Bottlenose dolphins display different behavior at DRC and at the Baltimore Aquarium. On several occasions I have had dolphins at the DRC leap out of the water to try and get my attention while I was walking along the causeway. They often surface on the sides for pictures, and make noises at visitors as if they are saying hello.

Dolphins at the Baltimore Aquarium act nearly sedated compared to the dolphins at DRC. They don’t have the same life in their eyes or personalities that the dolphins at the DRC have, nor are they at all as enthused as when they see a trainer or a visitor. They are trapped in a monotone bathtub with artificial lights shining on them, in fake seawater with fake enthusiasm placed on them by their trainers. They don’t seem happy.

Keeping marine mammals isn’t evil: the evil is found in ignoring what is best for the mammal, and treating them like an object.

Sea World has recently announced that they plan to phase out their Orca programs, and allow their mammals to live out their lives in captivity. The Baltimore Aquarium has stopped their dolphin shows completely.

While these steps are great – they certainly show that marine mammal facilities are starting to consider their dolphin’s lives more – they are misguided and uneducated in nature and don’t really improve the overall lives of their mammals. If a marine mammal facility decides it wants to better the lives of their animals, then they should be placed in open ocean pens. The mammals deserve to live out the rest of their lives where they belong.

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