Captive dolphin facilities — including marine parks, aquaria, and swim-with-dolphins programs — have faced growing scientific and public scrutiny over the welfare of highly intelligent, wide-ranging cetaceans in confinement.
Dolphin captivity presents welfare challenges that arise from the fundamental mismatch between the animal's biological complexity and what confinement can provide. Dolphins are acoustically complex, socially sophisticated, and cognitively capable animals that use echolocation in ways that pools disrupt. The echo-rich, restricted acoustic environment of a pool differs dramatically from open ocean. Social group stability — essential to dolphin welfare — is difficult to maintain in facilities that import, export, and breed animals for commercial reasons. The welfare science increasingly supports the view that the minimum conditions for good dolphin welfare cannot be met in captive facilities designed for public entertainment.