A Commerson’s dolphin calf died just minutes after being born at SeaWorld Orlando’s Aquatica water park. The calf was delivered by Ringer just after 8 p.m. Saturday. Ringer is a 16-year-old Commerson’s dolphin. She was born at SeaWorld San Diego and came to SeaWorld Orlando in January 2016. She previously had four unsuccessful pregnancies before she came to Orlando. Given her age and the previous unsuccessful pregnancies, Ringer had been on contraceptives for several years. On its blog, SeaWorld write that the “pregnancy was unexpected and our SeaWorld animal care and veterinary teams monitored her health and well-being very closely throughout her entire pregnancy.” “We were all hoping for the best outcome for her and her calf, and had all the support we could provide in place. The team responded immediately when the calf began to show signs of distress, a few minutes after birth, but unfortunately were unable to resuscitate the calf,” SeaWorld said. Despite the loss of her calf, Ringer appears to be doing well, SeaWorld said. She is under 24-hour observation and is not on display at the park. Animal Welfare Activists are speaking out against SeaWorld following news of the dolphin calf’s death. Don Anthony, the communication director for the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida said, “It’s a very unfortunate situation, keeping captive dolphins in cement boxes instead of the ocean where they belong and feeding them contraceptives is completely unnatural.” As for the impact of the calf’s death on the animals Anthony said, “It’s unfortunate for the mother dolphin, the baby who didn’t live more than a few hours and for all the captive forced performers in these so called amusement parks.” Anthony was also critical of the practice of giving whales and dolphins contraceptives. He said, “It’s completely unnatural, whales and dolphins don’t take contraceptives in the ocean, they get pregnant or they don’t get pregnant and they live in the ocean and most of the time things work very well for them.”