Horror of the circus dolphins forced to leap through f ire
HAVING been caught illegally in the wild and kept in squalid conditions in a travelling circus, these dolphins are forced to jump through hoops of fire at a show branded ‘barbaric’.
Campaigners claim the intelligent mammals are so poorly looked after and stressed by their life on the road that many die.
After doing tricks in a portable plastic pool, the 6ft-long bottlenose dolphins are loaded into open-topped, water-filled crates and put on trucks that transport them to the next show.
‘It’s barbaric – something from a bygone era,’ said Lincoln O’Barry, from the campaign group Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, which has released footage from a travelling circus in Indonesia.
The shows feature other animals including bears, otters and exotic birds, also kept and transported in similar conditions. The campaign group claims there are 72 dolphins in captivity in the country, where travelling circuses are still popular.
‘There is evidence that all have been caught illegally from the wild,’ said Mr O’Barry.
‘While all captive dolphin facilities have welfare issues, the circuses in Indonesia seem decidedly crueler because they’re travelling. The animals are frequently hauled out of their plastic performing pools and loaded into the back of trucks with other animals as the circuses move from town to town.’
He added: ‘The transportation is so stressful that many of the dolphins die due to this stress and lack of proper care.’
Campaigner Femke Den Haas, of Jakarta Animal Aid Network, said: ‘It’s extremely cruel. When I first learnt about the travelling dolphin shows, I couldn’t believe it.’
She pointed out that dolphins are particularly sensitive to sounds, so the cheering of audiences is ‘hell for them – they’re in so much pain exposed to this amount of noise’.
The Dolphin Project, which was set up in 1970 by American former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry, said three firms run such shows on the main Indonesian island of Java.
The campaign group’s footage from one of them also shows a baby bear being made to stand up and beg for snacks, and a pair of otters being forced to push each other around on a child’s scooter.