Bruna Griphao: Dolphins Belong in the Ocean—Not in Bathtub Tanks

Brazilian actor and singer Bruna Griphao has teamed up with PETA Latino for a powerful ad aimed at bringing attention to the unimaginable suffering that dolphins go through while imprisoned in cramped, barren concrete tanks.

In nature, bottlenose dolphins maintain dynamic relationships with large social networks, choose their mates, and swim free in the ocean. At marine parks, they’re often housed in incompatible groups. Because of the cramped conditions of their enclosures, they’re unable to escape conflicts with other frustrated animals. They’re coerced into performing tricks for tourists in exchange for food—all in the name of entertainment. It’s a business built on the suffering of intelligent, social animals who are denied everything that’s natural and important to them.

Many dolphins develop painful conditions, such as stomach ulcers, and some die prematurely from the stressful conditions of confinement. Illnesses—including bacterial infections such as salmonellosis as well as viral and fungal ones—can be passed from dolphins to human visitors. People have also been bitten and sustained broken bones during interactions with these powerful animals.

“I have been used as a breeding machine time after time. But my babies—those who even survive—never get to see anything except the walls that surround them. Humans often take them away from me and send them to other parks. This destroys me. I am so sad.”

At SeaWorld, dolphins are used as breeding machines to create generation after generation of animals who are also destined for a life in inhumane tanks. Male bottlenose dolphins are masturbated, and female ones are pulled out of the water and sometimes drugged so they can’t fight back while staff shove tubes filled with semen into their uteruses. Some have been repeatedly impregnated, only to have their babies torn away from them.

Join Bruna by Urging SeaWorld to End Its Dolphin-Breeding Program

Please never visit or attend marine parks or participate in “swim with dolphins” programs. It’s time to end decades of abuse of dolphins as breeding machines to create more generations of animals to exploit. You can help them by telling SeaWorld to end its dolphin-breeding program and move all the dolphins and whales it currently confines to coastal sanctuaries, where they could dive deeper, swim longer distances, and be free from exploitation.