'Overworked' baby dolphin dies in water park during performance, critics call facility a 'torturer'
An "overworked" baby dolphin reportedly died in the middle of her performance at a water park in Bulgaria. According to local media reports, the dolphin was just nine days old when it passed away at the Varna Dolphinarium on August 21.
"There was a disturbance, the dolphins stopped playing and performing tricks," one audience member, Bisser Lyubenov, told BTC Nivinite. He added that the show was then stopped and visitors were asked to leave the premises. However, some visitors reportedly saw the unresponsive body of the baby dolphin in the park. Although it is not yet clear what exactly caused the death, critics have blamed it on the conditions at the dolphinarium.
After the news caught public attention, Facebook users slammed the water park and called it a "torturer" for allegedly overworking the animals at the attraction.
Animal protection organization Four Paws' Yavor Gechev told BBC News that five dolphins and a seal had previously died at the park over the past five years. Gechev said the death count at the water park was over the average count: "This means categorically that conditions don't meet even the minimal standards for keeping such animals. The animals are struggling there, they are not surviving."
However, the park's officials denied the local media reports saying the death did not occur in front of a live audience. The facility's biologist, Tsvetan Stanev, said: "A baby dolphin taking part in performances nine days after it was born - this has never happened in this dolphinarium!"
Reports said dolphins born in captivity are known to have a higher mortality rate than those born in the free world, with nearly 50 to 75 percent of the ones in confinement dying in the first year of their lives. Studies have also shown that intelligent mammals like whales and dolphins also suffer mentally when in captivity.