Five dolphins perished at a well-known marine park on the Florida panhandle in less than a year, leading to the park’s closure and eventual sale.
How is the United States of America experiencing this? A volunteer for TideBreakers, a Canadian advocacy group opposing the imprisonment of marine mammals, Valerie Greene, a former animal trainer, told AL.com. Allowing this kind of abuse is unacceptable, and it’s widely known.
According to a news release from The Dolphin Company, the park’s parent company, Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City Beach, Florida, closed in May following the death of a bottlenose dolphin named Samira.
Since October 2024, Samira was the fifth dolphin to pass away in the park. Three dolphins in the marine park perished that month. According to Greene, TideBreakers thinks the fatal fungus that invaded the pools and leached during neighboring construction is to blame for the deaths.
After doing a stunt and landing in a shallow area of the tank, a fourth dolphin passed away in March. Later that month, TideBreakers released a video of the dolphins swimming in murky water that was covered in algae.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier launched a criminal inquiry against the park and its parent corporation in May after the dolphins died, according to news sources.
Then, on March 31, the Dolphin Company declared bankruptcy. The Gulf World property on Front Beach Road in Panama City Beach, along with a few of the company’s other properties, is being prepped for sale, according to a filing made by the bankruptcy officers last week.
The remaining dolphins have, for the most part, been moved to other facilities that are owned by The Dolphin Company.
The Panama City News Herald said that despite worries that some of the seals had eye problems, seals and sea lions were also relocated to the Miami Seaquarium.
Another Dolphin Company facility that has garnered media attention for its handling of animals is the Miami Seaquarium. The 2024 attempt by Miami-Dade County to evict the aquarium is still underway.
Greene claimed that they went from one dreadful roadside attraction to another, essentially exchanging a headache for an unsettled stomach.
According to the news release, The Dolphin Company attributed Gulf World’s problems to years of disregard on the part of the team stationed in Mexico that is responsible for park management.
According to the company’s press statement, the fiduciaries running the business under the supervision of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court continue to place a high premium on animal care and safety.
A request for comment from AL.com was not answered by a representative of The Dolphin Company.
Greene claims that when conditions worsened, the federal organizations in charge of overseeing Gulf World Marine Park did not hold the park responsible. As early as 2023, a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector noted that the dolphin’s water tank was splitting.
Greene complained to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Agriculture. She claimed that most of those complaints were disregarded.
TideBreakers has started circulating a petition requesting hearings from the US Congress on the agency’ purported inability to keep an eye on The Dolphin Company. Nearly 2,500 people have signed it as of right now.
Andre Bell, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said in a statement that the agency works diligently to enforce rules that safeguard the welfare of animals.
Ensuring the humane treatment of animals protected by the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) is a mission that APHIS takes very seriously. In an email, Bell stated that we are still working with facilities and doing inspections to make sure they are adhering to AWA requirements. We put a lot of effort into getting facilities back into compliance with the AWA standards as soon as we discover problems that cause them to do so. When people or companies are found to be in violation of the AWA, our investigation process may result in enforcement actions like warning letters, fines, license suspensions, or revocations.
A request for response from a NOAA representative was not answered in time for publication.
Although Greene expressed frustration that the animals are still being kept in facilities controlled by the Dolphin Company while the legal proceedings are ongoing, she expressed hope that the increased attention may result in better conditions for marine species kept in captivity.
According to Greene, we must drastically rethink the rules that are terribly insufficient to safeguard these animals. I believe that the entire industry is collapsing, beginning with The Dolphin Company and the way they have been let to operate for years.
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