Bottlenose dolphins in captivity face welfare challenges that have driven increasing public and scientific concern about the ethics of maintaining this highly intelligent, wide-ranging species in marine parks.
Captive dolphin welfare has been the subject of sustained scientific and public debate for decades, driving significant policy change in several countries. The core welfare concern is the fundamental mismatch between dolphin behavioral ecology — vast territories, complex social structures, echolocation-based hunting in open water — and any tank environment. Tank walls create acoustic reverberations that disrupt the sonar-based environmental navigation that dolphins use constantly. Social group stability in captivity is impossible to maintain at the scale of wild communities. Performance shows require behaviors that are unnatural and may cause stress. Marine sanctuaries — sea pen enclosures that provide much larger space and natural water — are increasingly proposed as a humane alternative for current captive dolphins that cannot be released. Public education programs can be delivered without captive performance.