A protest held by PETA, Animal Concerns Puerto Rico, and the Puerto Rico Committee for Free Dolphins against a proposed San Juan, Puerto Rico, dolphinarium went swimmingly as dozens of supporters came out to explain why the facility would be bad for dolphins and the city.

Photo: El Comité por Delfines Libres de Puerto Rico

The facility would purportedly use the dolphins to work with children with disabilities, including autism, but San Juan's mayor and other proponents ignore the fact that dolphin-assisted therapy has been discredited, with experts calling it downright dangerous. Who wants to risk having their child sexually molested by a randy dolphin?

Meanwhile, countless studies show that confining highly social, intelligent dolphins to cramped concrete tanks is akin to torture for them. Glen Venezio, who helped organize the protest, urged the city to embrace "the concept of live and let live. Leave the dolphins alone, in their ocean world where they belong." PETA supplied the local group with posters and other materials for the protest.

If your city has a marine mammal park or zoo, if you learn about an event featuring animals as prizes, or if there's any other situation harmful to animals in your community, contact PETA's Action Team to get help organizing a local protest or outreach. E-mail ATeam@peta.org or click here to join the Action Team and receive e-mail updates about events in your area.

Shadow and Chambers, two dolphins who were forced to perform at a Swiss aquarium, died after a rave party was held at the facility. Authorities are trying to determine the cause of death, which possibly includes being blasted with deafeningly loud music or being poisoned by narcotics dropped into their tank.

PETA Germany had sent an urgent appeal to aquarium management and veterinary officials to cancel the rave and is now poised to file a lawsuit against those responsible if the necropsies (expected to take several weeks) determine that the rave was connected with Shadow's and Chambers' deaths.

Dolphins, whales, rays, and other fish and sea life confined to cramped tanks in aquariums already have it bad enough without being subjected to the stress of loud parties put on by marine parks in an attempt to make a few extra bucks. As PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews recounted after attending a party at the Georgia Aquarium, three guides admitted that music at such parties upsets the animals and causes them to fight.

In the wild, dolphins swim together in family pods or tribes of hundreds. Photo: lowjumpingfrog | cc by 2.0

Never buy a ticket to the Georgia Aquarium, SeaWorld or any other facility that profits from keeping animals in captivity.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

As anyone who has ever forgotten to spell out "w-a-l-k" can attest, dogs can understand our language. One recent study showed that dogs can learn up to 165 words and gestures and that they can count. And dogs aren't the only animals you can depend on in an emergency either—a rabbit recently saved her human family from a house fire.

malfet_ | cc by 2.0

Could birds call each other "humanbrain" as an insult? Like humans, crows and ravens are very social and have large brains for their body size. They also rival humans and monkeys in their ability to delay self-gratification for a greater reward. They are articulate, too, as evidenced by escaped former companion birds who are now teaching their flocks to understand English. If a family planning to welcome a new baby is having trouble picking a name, perhaps they should consult with parrots, who name their offspring.

Dolphins talk to each other in a way similar to humans, too, by adjusting their muscular tension and air flow. Words likely not in their vocabulary? "Imprison," "abuse," and "exploit" …. But if they are familiar with those terms, it could explain why scientists in Australia are just now discovering a new species of dolphin—maybe they were hiding!

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Today, as Japanese fishers began stabbing dolphins with spears and cutting their throats with knives, PETA members, along with members of Earth Island Institute and Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project, marked "Dolphin Day" by gathering outside the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., to protest the annual slaughter. 

Protesters screened graphic footage from the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, showing how fishers in the village of Taiji chase entire schools of dolphins into a cove, trap them, and slaughter them as they scream and struggle to escape. The water turns bright red with the dolphins' blood.

People in many other cities around the world today also protested the slaughter, which will claim the lives of up to 23,000 dolphins and whales over the next six months. The animals are killed because they are considered "pests" by the fishing industry, although a few are captured alive and sold to aquariums and swim-with-dolphins programs, where they will spend the rest of their lives confined to cramped tanks.

You can help stop this by contacting your local Japanese Embassy and demanding that Japan end the cruel slaughter immediately.  

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Oooh, don't miss this: The deadly consequences of the marine mammal entertainment industry are on screen in the new film A Fall From Freedom, produced by San Francisco–based EarthViews Productions. In hardball interviews with marine scientists, whistleblowing former trainers, and theme park PR mouths, the scope and scale of the suffering of all the dolphins and whales who have died in parks like SeaWorld is made clear. 
 

 
The movie comes on the heels of Outside magazine reporter Tim Zimmerman's scathing investigative report about this insanely cruel industry, called "Blood in the Water." Describing the behavior of orcas in an "aqua park" in Spain, the piece notes that the whales used "their teeth to peel away strips of [the pool's coating] from the pool walls like bored kids picking at loose paint." Notes of a trainer monitoring one female orca's "frequent unhappy vocalizations" describes her as "back to feeling insecure when separated, alone, both in shows & in sessions." This piece makes riveting reading.

If you're hitting the road this summer, heed the plea from PETA pal Bob Barker to drive right on by marine theme parks and let SeaWorld know that you won't be buying a ticket.
 

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Independence Day is a day to celebrate America's freedoms, so why would the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) swear in new citizens at SeaWorld—a place that exemplifies the lack of freedom? PETA has fired off a letter to the director of CIS pointing out the irony of holding this joyous occasion where orcas and dolphins are kept in holding tanks for life. 

Confined and forced to spend their days swimming in continuous circles in barren concrete tanks and deprived of everything that is natural and important to them, animals at SeaWorld become depressed, listless, and prone to illness.  
 

Abi Skipp/cc by 2.0

Collapsed dorsal fins are a symptom of the unnatural environment of captivity—they are rarely seen in the wild, usually in orcas who are injured or ill.

 
Please ask CIS to adopt a policy that prohibits holding agency events at SeaWorld or at any other venue that causes animals to suffer or that has a history of flagrant violations of federal law.

 
Written by Jennifer O'Connor

© Carla Wilson

 
PETA supporters in Orlando, Florida, spent the Fourth of July weekend declaring independence for whales and dolphins held captive at SeaWorld. Here are the top five reasons that freedom should include marine animals.

1. Twenty-four dead orcas – and counting. Of the 24 orcas who have died at SeaWorld since 1986, not one died of old age. Many of their deaths were caused by captivity-induced illnesses.  
2. Life in a bathtub drains marine mammals' spirits. Forcing animals who naturally travel up to 100 miles a day in the open ocean to swim in continuous circles in tiny, barren concrete tanks causes stress-related behaviors, including suicide.
3. SeaWorld tears families apart. In the wild, dolphins spend their entire lives in a pod with their mothers and sisters. Capturing even one dolphin disrupts the entire pod. Dolphins born in captivity are often taken away from their loved ones and shipped to other facilities.
4. Frustrated animals are dangerous to people. Aside from the trainers killed by angry captive whales, the USDA has cited SeaWorld for several instances in which dolphins injured people in its swim-with-the-dolphins program.
5. If you don't support the jailing of innocent people, you shouldn't support SeaWorld. Scientists at Emory University mapped the brains of dolphins and concluded that they are second only to humans in intelligence. Captivity is as hard on these sensitive animals as it is on people, but the dolphins are being punished without having committed a crime.

You can help by writing to SeaWorld and asking the company to let its prisoners go free—to transitional coastal and wildlife sanctuaries.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

A new attraction at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta is being touted as a Broadway-style show, complete with costumed actors, animation projected on a huge screen, music recorded by a 61-piece orchestra, and, oh yeah, dolphins imprisoned for life in a chlorinated tank. Fun for the whole family—unless the family has a conscience.

The aquarium claims to pride itself on playing "a role in animal conservation," but in an opinion piece published in today's Atlanta Journal Constitution, PETA staffer Jen O'Connor points out that the aquarium spent $110 million on its splashy new dolphin exhibit—nearly 100 times the amount it spent on dolphin conservation. What's wrong with this Broadway-style picture?

"In the wild, dolphins swim together in family pods up to 100 miles a day," writes Jen. "They navigate by bouncing sonar waves off objects to determine location and distance. In captivity, their ocean worlds are reduced to claustrophobic swimming pools. Most aquariums keep antacids on hand to treat the animals' stress-related ulcers."
 

rachaelcleopatra/cc by 2.0

 
Dolphins are so intelligent that a neuroscientist at Emory University has recommended that they be given the same status as humans, and a professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University backed her up by saying, "The scientific research suggests that dolphins are 'non-human persons' who qualify for moral understanding as individuals." Would we lock up humans for life, just so that they could entertain a crowd for 25 minutes? The human actors in the Georgia Aquarium show get to go home to the families at the end of the day—not so for the dolphin performers.

"Try to imagine living in the same cramped place for the rest of your life," writes Jen. "Animals who are genetically designed to swim the vast oceans are no more able to adjust to lifelong captivity than we are. That's why prison is considered society's harshest punishment."

Read Jen's entire essay here.

 
Written by Alisa Mullins

Animals find new ways to astonish us every day. Wouldn't it be great if we returned the favor by astonishing them with our compassion?

Repoort /cc by 2.0

• Dolphins  and researchers have learned to speak each other's language. Can a Rosetta Stone course be far behind?
• Perhaps those dolphins can help us translate a Compassionate Action Award into dolphinese for this pup-friendly pod who rescued a dog.
• A courageous canine has proved that true friends are there when you need them most.
• A goose has found her lovebird in a retiree who visits the park where she lives.
• The Daily Mail answers the question, can dogs (and cats and elephants) die of a broken heart?
• Gorillas have been caught on film having a family meeting. Maybe over who ate the last banana?
• Chimpanzees laugh at their friends' jokes, even when they aren't funny.
• Macaques question their own reasoning. A lesson in there for humans, perhaps?
• U.K. scientists have discovered that "sheepish" really means "brainy."

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Giles Douglas / CC by 2.0

Two ailing dolphins who have been languishing in a filthy, cramped tank in Turkey are on the road to recovery after PETA Germany and the marvelous charity Born Free took action. And after The Sun—the U.K.'s best-selling newspaper—ran an exposé about Tom and Misha's plight, PETA Germany staffers posted an action alert, wrote to the mayor, and coordinated action with Turkish animal protection groups.

Our colleagues at Born Free are moving Tom and Misha to a rehabilitation center, and the dolphins will be released into their rightful ocean home as soon as they've recovered.

Let's call for the rehabilitation and release of more captive dolphins, such as the orcas (the largest members of the dolphin family) at SeaWorld.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor