Can you imagine being a dolphin and being held in prison for doing nothing wrong? You spend all your days behind bars with other miserable jail mates. Sometimes they become aggressive towards you due to their own frustrations of being so tightly confined. Why have your freedoms been taken away? Because you provide so-called “public entertainment.”

Unfortunately, for many dolphins and other cetaceans, this is their reality. But at least four dolphins are taking matters into their own fins. In an awesome feat, four dolphins have escaped from a recreational facility named DolphinBase in the Japanese town of Taiji. Taiji is internationally known for the cruel dolphin hunts that take place there every year between September and March, where large numbers of wild dolphins are herded into a small cove. From there, they are either slaughtered for their meat or hand-picked for captive facilities, such as DolphinBase. The four dolphins who escaped are between three to five years old and were being trained to swim with tourists in the facility’s seaside pens. Sadly, they had been held captive for more than six months.


The four dolphins escaped after staff at DolphinBase found their nets slashed. Go dolphins, go!

Local police don’t know who was behind the incident. But unfortunately, three of the dolphins are back in their enclosure, while one dolphin remains missing. We hope he swims far, far away!

It’s no wonder these four dolphins jumped on the opportunity to escape DolphinBase the moment they were given the chance to. Dolphins, which are second in intelligence behind humans, are one of the few animals that can learn new things throughout their lives, and then teach those new skills to their young. Even though it may seem like a neat idea, please don’t swim with dolphins and urge your friends and family to do the same. Not supporting marine parks and learning why there is hope for the demise of the captivity industry are also great steps.

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Image Source: Rui R/M.Olson

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