'World's loneliest dolphin' dies alone in tiny tank in abandoned theme park

Daily Mirror

22-05-2025

Honey, a female bottlenose dolphin, spent the last two years of her life in a small pool at the Marine Park Aquarium in Choshi, Japan, before she heartbreakingly died alone
The "world's lonelist dolphin" who spent her life in captivity died after spending two years alone in a tiny tank at an abandoned aquarium.
Honey, a female bottlenose dolphin, died alone in a small pool at the Marine Park Aquarium in Choshi, Japan, where she had spent the last two years of her life. Her death occurred on March 29, 2020 and was confirmed by the US-based charity, the Dolphin Project.
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The bottlenose dolphin was captured in Taiji's brutal drive hunts in 2005 before spending the rest of her life in captivity. Honey first made international headlines after it was revealed that she had been abandoned at the aquarium, along with 46 penguins, in January 2018.
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The facility closed due to a drop in visitors following the 2011 earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear crisis. While an employee continued to feed the animals, they were otherwise left to fend for themselves in unsanitary conditions.
Honey had lived a troubling existence. She was taken from the wild in 2005, and the world became familiar with her story after it was featured in the 2009 Oscar-winning documentary The Cove.
The Dolphin Project attempted to intervene, reaching out to rescue Honey and the other abandoned animals. They even explored purchasing her from the new owners of the facility in an effort to offer Honey a peaceful retirement. However, by March 2020, it became clear that her health had deteriorated beyond recovery.
In the final years of her life, photos and videos showed Honey floating in a small, dirty pool in an abandoned facility. The images of her and other neglected animals, including dust-covered penguins, quickly spread on social media, with calls for their rescue under hashtags like #SaveHoney.
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Despite the charity's efforts and public outcry, Honey's life ended in isolation, leaving many to question the treatment of marine animals in captivity.
Elsewhere, fears have been raised for a number of other dolphins trapped in filthy tanks after their marine park's company went bankrupt.
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The bottlenose dolphins, who are still performing tricks for crowds, have no choice but to endure human encounters with customers who pay $130 (£97) to swim in their enclosure and hug the mammals.
And now campaigners are concerned they are going blind after they were filmed swimming with their eyes "jammed shut" in the murky water.
Green algae has started growing in the crumbling tanks at Gulf World, in Florida's Panama City Beach, and inspectors from the US Department of Agriculture scraped nearly six inches of algae off the step of one of the pools.
Four of the dolphins have died in mysterious circumstances within six months, including one in March that landed on its head in front of children in a shallow part of the pool.