Berkeley Alumna Leads Push to Free Dolphins at Six Flags

For Immediate Release:
July 17, 2026

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

“Dolphins Suffer Here!” That’s the message Sacramento native and UC Berkeley alumna Barbara Harvey sent outside Six Flags Discovery Kingdom today, when she led PETA supporters in demanding that the dolphins confined in the theme park’s tiny tanks—like Merlin, who was abducted from the Gulf of Mexico in 1989 and has spent more than three decades languishing there—be released to seaside sanctuaries. Harvey is available for interviews, and photos of the action can be found here.

Harvey, a 2020 Berkeley Journalism graduate who contributed to the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning pandemic coverage before joining PETA as a media writer, brought her passion for justice full circle by speaking out for animals she first worried about as a child visiting the park—back when it was still known as “Marine World Africa USA.” Now the mother of a 4-year-old daughter, Harvey is determined to see the dolphins whose suffering she once witnessed firsthand relocated to seaside sanctuaries where they could finally swim freely, dive deep, and thrive in a more natural environment.

Credit: PETA

“Merlin has been trapped in these miserable tanks for my entire life, denied everything natural to him and forced to perform for crowds while enduring the chaos of a noisy theme park,” Harvey says. “I went into journalism because I believe in confronting injustice head-on, so as long as Six Flags Discovery Kingdom keeps naturally far-ranging marine mammals imprisoned in sad, shallow pools, I’ll keep bringing the pressure with PETA until Merlin and the other dolphins can feel ocean currents instead of concrete walls.”

In nature, dolphins maintain dynamic relationships with large social networks and can swim up to 60 miles a day. But at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, they’re confined to cramped concrete tanks and forced to perform in shows during which trainers may stand on their faces. The park also subjects them to harmful, intrusive hands-on encounters with visitors in its “swim with dolphins” program, exposing them to stress, illness, and potential injury from constant handling.

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom’s lengthy history of violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act includes a critical citation for the role of poor water quality in the deaths of two young dolphins. More than 30,000 PETA supporters have urged the theme park to release the surviving dolphins to seaside sanctuaries.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

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