Student to Bring Cruelty of Dolphin Captivity to Bard College

peta2 Throws Its Support Behind Plan to Give Students a Feel for Cetaceans’ Confinement That Will Have Them Boycotting Aquariums

For Immediate Release:
April 18, 2013

Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382

Red Hook, N.Y. – Students at Bard College will soon have a chance to experience at least some of the cruelty inherent in keeping dolphins captive. That’s because for her capstone project, fourth-year student Samantha Rosenbaum is erecting a dark, cramped walk-in display—complete with ankle-high “unclean” water—to simulate the conditions of the concrete tanks in which cetaceans are placed at amusement parks and aquariums. The project will also feature images displayed by a film projector as well as information about how intelligent, free-living dolphins suffer when they’re taken from their ocean homes and forced to perform tricks for a reward of dead fish. PETA’s youth division, peta2, has written a special blog post about the project.

When:   Friday, April 19, 6–9 p.m.

Where:  Ludlow Lawn, Bard College, Red Hook, N.Y.

“Keeping dolphins in barren concrete tanks at aquariums is the equivalent of forcing a human to live in a bathtub,” says peta2 Director of Youth Outreach and Campaigns Marta Holmberg. “Samantha’s exhibit will have students and faculty members thinking twice before visiting aquariums that profit directly from these highly intelligent animals’ misery.”

In their natural habitats, dolphins swim together in family pods and travel up to 100 miles each day. Dolphins navigate by bouncing sonar waves off objects to determine location and distance. In captivity, the reverberations that occur when their own sonar bounces off pool walls drive some dolphins insane, according to the late renowned oceanographer Jacques Cousteau.

For more information, please visit peta2’s blog.