Dolphins captured through drive hunts for marine parks experience extreme trauma and face lifelong welfare compromises in captive settings designed for entertainment rather than species needs.
Dolphins experience drive hunt capture as catastrophic: the noise, confinement, and separation from family cause acute terror and physical injury. Post-capture mortality during transport is significant. Survivors enter facilities where pool walls, artificial groupings, and performance training replace the complex social lives and vast home ranges of their natural environment. Chronic boredom, conflict with incompatible tank-mates, and the psychological demand of performing for food create chronic stress. Skin lesions from pool chemistry, dental wear from gnawing pool edges, and stomach ulcers are common in captive dolphins. The fundamental problem is that dolphin welfare needs cannot be adequately met in any facility designed primarily for public entertainment.