Latest news with #TheDolphinCompany
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Gulf World Marine Park: Florida opens criminal investigation into dolphin deaths
Several dolphins have reportedly died over the span of five months at a Florida marine park and aquarium, prompting several investigations, including a statewide criminal investigation, according to officials and media reports. Attorney General James Uthmeier said Friday that his office had opened criminal investigations into Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City Beach, Florida, and its apparent parent company, Mexico-based The Dolphin Company. Concerns have been raised in recent weeks and months following the reported deaths of five dolphins and concerning inspections noting algae-filled swimming pools and tanks, and low staffing to maintain the facility. The FWC and the USDA, which oversees marine care, animal movements, and facility inspections, are also investigating. What we know Five dolphins under the care of Gulf World Marine Park in Florida's Panhandle have died since October, according to several media reports, citing Florida state Sen. Jay Trumbull. Sen. Trumbull posted an update on March 28 that a second dolphin had died, marking two dolphin deaths in a month. Additional reports indicate that three dolphins died over the span of a week in October 2024. "Another dolphin has died at Gulf World. This marks the second in just over a month—and it's part of a disturbing and unacceptable pattern. These are not isolated incidents—they are signs of failure, and they demand immediate action," Sen. Trumbull said in a Facebook post. "From the moment we were first made aware of the situation, we demanded action. We engaged with all relevant state agencies immediately to intercede in any way possible and have continued to press for swift intervention ever since." The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has conducted 19 inspections at Gulf World Marine Park since 2014. The most recent inspections were conducted on Jan. 8 and March 4, 2025. Those inspection reports detail a facility seemingly in disrepair: "All the dolphin pools still have an excessive amount of at least 6 inches of algae bloom along all the walls and bottom of pools and clumps of algae floating in pools" - March 4 inspection "When the APHIS inspector was standing above the main pool, looking down into the water, it was difficult to see the dolphins if they are approximately three feet below the water" - March 4 inspection "At the time of the inspection, there is no working filter for dolphin east pool which went down on November 13, 2024. According to staff, the filtration for dolphin west is only functioning at 50 percent" - Jan. 8 inspection "There is an abundance of algae growth in multiple dolphin pools with the inspector scraping algae off a step that was almost 6 inches in length" - Jan. 8 inspection "The facility has lost six maintenance employees in the past three months leaving them with two maintenance employees. Additionally the facility has lost seven animal care employees in the past three months" - Jan. 8 inspection "At the time of the inspection, the penguins had been moved to an indoor room due to colder temperatures. The room where the animals are housed appears to be an storage space with carpet, old sound equipment with cords hanging down the cabinets, paint for crafts in the area, dust and debris throughout the room" - Jan. 8 inspection "The perimeter around the dolphin stadium pool is in the early stages of disrepair with paint flaking off right at the edge of the pool" - Jan. 8 inspection "The facility still has not provided shade over the far side of dolphin east pool where dry guest interactions are done, or the over the main show stage where the dolphins station for food during training sessions with the trainers or during public guest interactions after shows" - Jan. 8 inspection "Along the far wall of the sea lion stadium pool where a seal was swimming, rust is still coming through the wall and running down the wall and into the water" - Jan. 8 inspection FOX 35 Orlando reached out to The Dolphin Company and Gulf World Marine Park on Friday for comment, but did not hear back. Click to open this PDF in a new window. Click to open this PDF in a new window. On March 1, a dolphin named "Jett" died after performing a trick during a public show. He was found on the bottom of the pool with blunt force trauma to his rostrum and skull, according to the March 4, 2025, inspection report. "When he came down into the water he went to the bottom of the pool and did not resurface. Due to excessive algae growth, the trainers could not visualize what occurred and according to conversations with the staff, they believed he was hanging out on the bottom of the pool because he did not receive a bridge reinforcer," the report states. "The trainers did not suspect anything was wrong, until he did not resurface in a timely manner. The trainers then separated the remaining dolphins, cleared the stadium and entered the pool to find him on the bottom. When he was pulled to the surface there was evidence of trauma to his rostrum, and it was clarified by the veterinarian that he was deceased. Preliminary necropsy results confirmed that cause of death was blunt force trauma to his rostrum and skull." A vet theorized that when the dolphin re-entered the water during the show, he hit a shallow shelf, damaging his rostrum and skull. "Due to the lack of clarity in the water and the inability for the trainers to see what happened, all reaction time was significantly delayed," the inspection stated. USA Today, citing Marine Mammal Inventory Reports, noted that the three dolphins who died in October 2024 were euthanized due to "an unspecified life-threatening condition, a bacterial lung disease and a systemic infection." Staff reportedly blamed construction near a pool where the dolphins were living on the deaths. According to its website, The Dolphin Company operates 21 dolphin experiences and marine aquariums in the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Italy. There are four in Florida: Gulf World, Panama City Marineland, St. Augustine Miami Seaquarium, Miami Dolphin Connection, Duck Key It's unclear if the state's investigation includes the other Florida facilites. According to USA Today, The Dolphin Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 31 in Delware. The report said the company wants $8 million in debtor-in-possession funding or financing to restructure the business. USA Today reported that Gulf World Marine Park was sold to The Dolphin Company in 2015 for $15 million, citing court documents. According to its website, Gulf World was founded on Memorial Day in 1970. What they're saying "Thank you, @AGJamesUthmeier for your leadership on this matter. The FWC is fully committed to coordinating with the Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution to ensure justice is served and Florida's marine life is protected from abuse" - FWC in a X post on May 30. "Today, my office opened a statewide criminal investigation into Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City Beach and its Mexico-based parent company, The Dolphin Company" - Attorney General James Uthmeier in a X post on May 30 "Gulf World Marine Park is a Class C Exhibitor, license number 58-C-0992. APHIS has been in regular contact with the facility and has been conducting frequent inspections. The most recent inspection posted to the Public Search Tool is from a March 4 inspection" - USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service "This remains an active ongoing criminal investigation in conjunction with local, state, and federal officials, including the State Attorney's Office. FWC recognizes and shares the rightful concerns of the community and will provide updates as soon as they become available" - FWC in a X post on May 28. "The reported dangers to worker, visitor, and animal safety at Gulf World must be addressed without delay. City, county, state, and federal representatives are urgently working together to demand Gulf World comply with all investigations and applicable regulations. We continue to invite Gulf World to collaborate with us" - Panama City Beach Mayor Stuart Tettemer, March 24 Requests for comment were sent to Gulf World Marine Park and The Dolphin Company via their websites. The Source The information in this article comes from statements and/or social media posts from Attorney General James Uthmeier, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service, public USDA inspection reports, local and national media reports, and a March 24 news release from the City of Panama Beach.
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
UK's secret dolphin pool of horrors as ex-trainer has warning for holidaymakers
David Holroyd is a former top dolphin trainer-turned-whistleblower - who says as long as the unwitting public keep paying to see dolphins in captivity, the more animals will die painful deaths If you're going on holiday this summer to Europe, Japan or the USA, chances are you'll see signs to theme parks containing captive dolphins that have been trained to perform tricks for crowds. Some may even offer 'swim with dolphins' experiences for an extra fee, allowing a small number of people to get into the pool with the dolphins to be towed by their dorsal fin, hug them and play with them. But the former top dolphin trainer in the UK, who walked away from the industry after witnessing some of its horrors, has begged holidaymakers not to give a penny to these "hellholes" - because of the death, violence and illegal practices he's claimed to have seen first-hand. David Holroyd, now 72, was best known by his stage name David Capello when he worked with dolphins as a young man in the 1970s. He was forced to leave his beloved animals behind when he suffered a mental breakdown after witnessing brutal scenes of cruelty towards the dolphins - a decision that has haunted him for the rest of his life. Now an author and campaigner, David wants to lift the lid on the conditions of places like Gulf World in Florida and Marineland Antibes in southern France are really like for the intelligent mammals kept imprisoned in too-small tanks. Gulf World Marine Park in Panama Beach City has been criticised for a litany of faults and, on May 28, lost its fifth dolphin within the last year. While reports are still unconfirmed, the latest death is rumoured to be that of Soleil, a nine-year-old female bottlenose dolphin. The park's Mexico-based parent company, The Dolphin Company, has not responded to The Mirror's request for comment. Britain experienced a dolphin craze in the 1970s, with many animals imported from America to entertain crowds at dolphinaria like Windsor Safari Park, Blackpool Dolphinarium and Brighton Aquarium, all of which have since closed down. It was at the start of the decade that David, then aged 17, answered a newspaper advert calling for a "young person to present dolphins". Out of 350 applicants, he was picked - and was quickly sent to a secret training pool in the small Yorkshire mining village of South Elmsall, which had been converted from a swimming pool to hold wild dolphins. Most of the animals would have come from the 'Killing Cove', Japan's Taiji, where each year hunters would drive hundreds of dolphins towards the shore and pen them in, slaughtering most for meat and capturing the young ones who had not yet left their pod to sell on to dolphinaria around the world. The horrors of Taiji have been widely reported, including in the 2009 documentary The Cove. Many of the dolphins would arrive at South Elmsall traumatised and terrified, having been ripped from their social structures and crammed into tiny crates to be shipped to the UK. Some would refuse to eat - so David and his fellow trainers would have to force-feed them dead fish. "We had a dolphin called Bubbles come in from the US, and when I checked her over it was like looking in a coffin," David recalls. "She was void. She was so bad. I asked the handler who brought her, 'Why did you bring this dolphin?' He said, 'Because she looks good.'" Bubbles had refused to eat throughout her long journey from Florida to the UK because she had gone into shock when she was caught. "She was in shock for the rest of her short and miserable life," says David. "And that dolphin never took a fish willingly. I force-fed her three times a day." The horrific procedure would mean catching the dolphin manually in the pool, tying gags to her upper and lower jaws to wrench open her mouth, and extra handlers pinning her down so that someone could push fish down her throat, "five at a time". "She was trying to starve herself to death," says David sadly. Bubbles failed to thrive in the UK, and suffered mentally from the treatment she'd endured since being captured. David's mentor warned him that Bubbles had been put on suicide watch because she'd started behaving erratically in her holding pen. "Normally she just swam round and round and round, but one day I walked in and she suddenly started to speed up. I thought she was going to ram the wall, so I jumped in to the pool and grabbed her. She did hit the wall, but I'd taken the sting out because I'd got to her first. And I said to my friends, my colleagues, 'I did the right thing. I saved her.' And the look on their faces told me that I hadn't done the right thing at all," he remembers. "I should have let her kill herself because she was in so much torment." Another dolphin called Scouse was packed into the same cargo hold as Bubbles and suffered horribly when he was unloaded in the UK. "The handler tried to reach Scouse, who was laying in a sling inside his transport. Scouse started to thrash around and fight, and then his sling tore and took out both of his eyes. He was instantly blinded," says David. While animal welfare legislation has been tightened in the UK since David's time, dolphins kept in captivity in other countries still face brutal and cruel mistreatment. One now-closed theme park in a country visited by millions of British tourists removed all the teeth from a dolphin who had nipped a child during a swimming with dolphins session, in a case that is still going through the courts. "Of course, the dolphin continually got infection after infection because it was kept in rotten water," says David. "And it died. This happened less than two years ago." In any theme park that features captive dolphins, the water will be treated with chlorine to kill off bacteria. But the very act of bleaching the water causes untold damage to the animals - and one giveaway sign of poor health is the colour of their skin. "In captivity they're almost silver, they look gorgeous," says David. "But that's not their true colour. In the wild they're slate-grey to almost black. That beautiful colouring is due to chlorine bleaching, it bleaches the skin. So if it's doing that on the outside, what do you think it's doing on the inside? It's poison. As soon as they're brought into captivity, it's poison." Because most marine parks have tanks that are too small for their captive dolphins - who in the wild can swim up to 100 miles a day - more chlorine is dumped in their pools to keep the water germ-free. "The higher the chlorine levels, the more it starts to burn," says David. "You can only do that for so long before your dolphins won't perform and will start vomiting. You'll start to see their skin peeling. And once the chlorine dies, the water becomes a toxic mix of spent chlorine, faeces and urine." The only way to save the dolphins at that point is to drain the pool entirely and fill it with clean, fresh water - but as that is expensive, David claims management teams are loathe to let it happen. "I was constantly fighting the management about water," he says. "I used to sneak in at midnight with a friend, move my dolphins to a holding pen and drain their tank. The problem was you could never re-fill a pool quick enough. So when the managers all came in the next morning, they only had half a pool. I was threatened so many times with the sack. But I wouldn't leave my charges in filth-ridden cesspools." But it was David's skill with the dolphins that kept him in a job, he believes. The very first animals he trained, Duchess and Herb'e, became known as the Perfect Pair, because they could move in perfect harmony - even performing a complex somersault routine dubbed the Shadow Ballet at their home in Knowsley Safari Park - which at that time was managed by the BBC naturist Terry Nutkins. "They were phenomenal," says David. "And yet you won't find them in the history books because every one of my dolphins died within six months after I walked." It was, claims David, company policy to destroy the records of any captive dolphin after their death at that time in the UK, which he alleges was to cover up the high rate of casualties. "In my day, a commercial dolphin's lifespan was three to four years. In the wild, they can live 50, 60, even up to 70 years. But in captivity they had the stress of the transports, chlorinated water and so on." On his last day in the job, David witnessed the tragic death of Herb'e - also known as Flippa - the dolphin he had trained from scratch and shared a special connection with. Herb'e and Duchess were being transported from Knowsley, Merseyside, to Rhyl in North Wales on Terry Nutkins' instruction, and were loaded onto canvas slings so they would stay in place during the van journey. But the slings were too small, so the accompanying vet said he would cut them to make more room for the dolphins, despite David's protests. "I had alarm bells ringing... I put my hand into their box and I could see Duchess' blue eye looking at me. I put my hand over her eye as I knew what was going to happen - the vet's scalpel went through the sling and into my hand," David recalls. The vet insisted David go straight to hospital for stitches, and against his better judgement he left his beloved dolphins to get treated. The animals were put outside in a van on a cold November day and caught pneumonia. "Herb'e never recovered," David says starkly. "When I got to Rhyl he was already unloaded into the pool. I remember how he died to this day: I was in the water and I heard people screaming because Herb'e had disappeared below the water. "I dived down to get him and all I could see was Herb'e looking at me sinking tail-first. When dolphins die they disembowel, so I was swimming through all of this muck with bits of him stuck to me as I was going down. He fell very slowly to the bottom of the pool, and it was like having an out-of-body experience, I was watching myself on the bottom of a pool cradling a dead eight-foot dolphin. "I pushed him up to the top, all I could hear was the echo of screams under 13 foot of water. All these hands came and dragged him out of the water. I never saw Herb'e again. I got out of that pool. I walked downstairs to the changing rooms and I stole five log books relating to Herb'e's life, walked to my car and I never set foot on the dolphin stage again." Traumatised by what he'd seen and been part of, David had a mental breakdown and turned down the opportunity to become head trainer of Ramu III, who was then Europe's only captive orca, held by Billy Smart's Circus at Windsor Safari Park. Within six months of his decision to quit his high-flying career, all six of the dolphins David had formed a bond with died. Scouse, the young dolphin who had lost his eyes during his transport, was killed when he ingested a razor blade. Duchess was taken back to Knowsley, where the vet said she died of a broken heart. "It always tortures me because I always said to her I would never leave her, and I did," says David. "I want to put my wrongs right if I can. They all escaped the dolphinarium when they died. I never did. It's haunted me throughout my life." Now David, who co-wrote The Perfect Pair dolphin trilogy with his sister Tracy, campaigns to close down the marine zoos that still keep dolphins and whales captive. "These animals weren't meant to be captive. In the wild they swim and ride waves for hundreds of miles They can't do that in a concrete fishbowl," he says. "If you want to see dolphins or whales, take a boat trip. Go and see them in their natural environment, as they should be seen, in the wild. Because while the public are still paying money to feed this vile industry, this isn't going to stop."
NDTV
22-05-2025
- Business
- NDTV
Ex-CEO Of Ocean Theme Parks Defends Record After Dolphin Deaths
Another dolphin has died in an aquatic park operated by The Dolphin Company, the fifth in the last year as an executive and lenders fight for control of the bankrupt company. Independent managers in the US were unable to get help investigating the cause of the death from company veterinarians in Mexico, where Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Albor maintains control of the headquarters and some of the parks. Operations in Europe, the US and the Caribbean are under the control of lender-appointed managers. The dolphin, named Robin, died at one of the attractions in Italy last month, said Robert Wagstaff, chief restructuring officer for the lender-controlled side of the business. Wagstaff was hired by a newly installed independent director in March. Wagstaff and Albor testified in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware on Wednesday as part of a fight over the company's Mexican operations. Under questioning by his lawyer, Albor insisted that his top priority was protecting about 300 dolphins and other animals that are the main attractions at the parks and also serve as collateral for the lenders. "Other than people safety, animal health care comes first," Albor said. "We don't look at this as strictly business. This is a mission that we have." Wagstaff testified that after he was appointed by lenders, he discovered serious financial problems that threatened operations at some the US parks. At one point a park was closed for 10 days because worker compensation insurance benefits had not been paid, he said. Locks Changed The lenders have been trying to remove Albor since last year when the company defaulted on about $100 million in debt. Albor has used court cases in Mexico to try to block lenders from taking over the company and to remove their representatives from the headquarters in Cancun. Last month, Albor, with help from state police officers, took back control of the headquarters building, which the executive owns. After putting the corporation into bankruptcy in the US, lenders had temporarily changed the locks on the building, including on Albor's personal office. The two sides have been fighting over company records, computer systems and access to employees who are needed to operate the Mexican businesses. US Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Silverstein must decide whether to take action against Albor or allow him to keep trying to fight the lenders in court in Mexico. The lenders want Silverstein to order Albor to cooperate with their efforts to reorganize the parks, including those in Mexico. Caught between the two sides are employees and animals spread among the company's various parks. The dolphins, sea lions and other animals are both the main attractions and valuable collateral for the lenders. Albor denied that he ordered the company's most senior vets in Mexico not to cooperate with the lender-installed managers in the US. Florida authorities opened investigations following the premature deaths of bottlenose dolphins at Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City Beach. Jett, a 14-year-old dolphin, died in March from acute head trauma after hitting the shallow portion of the pool during a live show. Three other dolphins at Gulf World died within days of each other in October, according to court records. US Department of Agriculture inspectors said in a January report that multiple enclosures housing marine mammals were "in disrepair" and said algae growth in pools had reduced dolphins' visibility. While describing the pools, the report said a USDA inspector scraped algae off a step "that was almost 6 inches in length." Valerie Greene, a former Sea World trainer and animal welfare advocate, shared the USDA report with Bloomberg News. The report also noted rust on sea lion pools where animals were swimming. Company bankruptcy lawyer Robert Brady said at a hearing last month that US advisers hired an outside animal welfare expert who oversaw the transfer of sea lions out of Gulf World after Florida authorities forced the company to close a pen for necessary maintenance. The case is Leisure Investments Holdings LLC, number 25-10606, in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
Bloomberg
22-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Ex-CEO of Ocean Theme Parks Defends Record After Dolphin Deaths
Another dolphin has died in an aquatic park operated by The Dolphin Company, the fifth in the last year as an executive and lenders fight for control of the bankrupt company. Independent managers in the US were unable to get help investigating the cause of the death from company veterinarians in Mexico, where Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Albor maintains control of the headquarters and some of the parks. Operations in Europe, the US and the Caribbean are under the control of lender-appointed managers.
USA Today
02-04-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Company at center of probe into dolphin deaths at Gulf World Marine Park files for bankruptcy
Company at center of probe into dolphin deaths at Gulf World Marine Park files for bankruptcy The Dolphin Company, which operates 31 theme parks and marine exhibits in eight countries, filed for bankruptcy amid a Florida probe into animal deaths at the Gulf World Marine Park. Show Caption Hide Caption Watch: Protests take place outside of Gulf World Marine Park in PCB Reporters with the News Herald caught up with protesters on March 29, 2025, outside of Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City Beach The Dolphin Company, owners of embattled Florida theme park and marine entertainment venue Gulf World Marine Park, has filed for bankruptcy amid protests and a formal investigation into conditions at the park. The Dolphin Company and 15 affiliated ventures are listed in court documents as being under the ownership of Leisure Investments Holdings LLC. The Cancun, Mexico-based operator filed for Chapter 11 protection on Mar. 31 in Delaware Bankruptcy Court, seeking $8 million in debtor-in-possession funding, or financing that will be used for restructuring in hopes of keeping the company afloat. The Dolphin Company, then called Dolphin Discovery, acquired Gulf World from a private owner and former CEO Ron Hardy for $15 million in 2015, according to court documents reviewed by USA TODAY. It is located in Panama City Beach. Activists, members of the public and now politicians and government officials have called for investigations into the company, and specifically, its Gulf World location, after reports of animal mistreatment. USA TODAY contacted The Dolphin Company and Gulf World Marine Park on Tuesday but has not received a response. Four dolphins died, green water and condemned buildings Concerns over conditions at the park began circling in October when three bottlenose dolphins died in just one week. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) marine mammal inventory report later listed the causes of death, as reported by Gulf World, as euthanasia due to an unspecified life-threatening condition, a bacterial lung disease and a systemic infection. These deaths are believed by veterinarians to have been related to construction happening near the pools where the animals were housed. Jett, a 14-year-old bottlenose dolphin, died from acute head trauma during the first weekend of March, as reported by the Panama City News Herald, part of the USA TODAY Network. Jett suffered the injury after performing a jump in the air for a trick and landing in the shallow part of his pool. This, paired with drone footage shared by TideBreakers, an anti-captivity advocacy group, sparked public concern. The videos, taken on March 16 and 17, show dolphins swimming in cloudy and bright green water within a decaying enclosure. This is the same enclosure in which the first three dolphins who died, Nate (20), Gus (14) and Turk (15), lived. The filtering system for one pool has been down since November 2024 and another only operates at about 50%, according to a USDA inspection report from January. Other violations included crumbling infrastructure, a lack of shade and two structures in such bad condition that they were closed by a building inspector in January 2023, according to documents reviewed by USA TODAY and the News Herald. Several inspection records found issues at the park between January 2023 and March 2024. The January report found that conditions had not significantly improved despite Gulf World representatives' claims that the cited issues were being, or had been, resolved. Other findings from inspection reports revealed that multiple pools — including the main sea lion stadium pool — were in a state of disrepair with dripping rust, chipping paint, algae buildup and broken concrete. In one instance mentioned in an October 2023 report, a piece of concrete from a crumbling pool ended up in a bottlenose dolphin's mouth, trainers told inspectors. "The animals at Gulf World need to be moved to safety immediately before more die," Valerie Greene, a former trainer of 11 years at SeaWorld Orlando and former chair of the International Marine Animal Trainers' Association, told USA TODAY. "They need to go to safe and clean facilities that are not owned or operated by The Dolphin Company ... Simply put, Gulf World needs to be closed. The park is so dilapidated that it's past the point of salvaging." Greene said sanctuaries are not an option for these animals, as none exist in North America and it would take months to get permits to move them elsewhere. That is time the animals don't have, according to Greene. Investigations underway On March 25, the city of Panama City Beach sent out a press release saying it is working with local, state and federal officials to address issues at the park. Representatives for the park were invited but chose not to attend, the News Herald reported. The conditions caught the attention of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who said he directed his office to work with law enforcement and conduct an investigation in a March 25 post on X. "We will not tolerate any animal cruelty," he said. The park has reportedly denied access to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officers and local health department authorities attempting to conduct inspections in the recent past. Law enforcement agencies were spotted outside the park on March 27, where FWC vehicles and Panama City Beach Police Chief Eusebio Talamantez were seen entering and exiting the facility as drones flew overhead. Employees from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) were also on the scene. "The (FWC) takes the health and welfare of all wildlife, including Florida's marine mammals, very seriously," FWC public affairs officer Christopher Boley said in a statement to the News Herald. "Due to growing concern about the sanitation and condition of the aquatic enclosures, as well as the well-being of captive bottlenose dolphins at Gulf World Marine Park, FWC has joined partner agencies to conduct a thorough investigation of the facility." A protest was staged outside the facility on March 29, during which citizens expressed concern for the 12 remaining dolphins inside. "My apartment pool in my complex is bigger than the pool the 12 dolphins are kept in every night," one protester told the News Herald. "I would love to see someone go in and rehab use it to actually rehabilitate." The Dolphin Company bankruptcy may impact several other locations The Dolphin Company runs 31 parks and marine habitats in eight countries, with four marine parks located in Florida. Besides Gulf World, Dolphin Connection in Duck Key, Marineland in St Augustine and the Miami Seaquarium are all under the company's ownership and management, something that raises alarm bells for Greene. "The biggest issue moving forward with similar situations at other facilities is the ones we've faced with Gulf World and its sister park, the Miami Seaquarium," said Greene, who has also expressed serious concerns about conditions at the Miami Seaquarium for some time. Despite frequent complaints to agencies like the USDA, NOAA and FWC, who all have varying degrees of jurisdiction, the wheels of bureaucracy turn excruciatingly slowly, if at all, said Greene, and animals continue to suffer in the meantime. "The federal agencies do nothing more than document the violations of the law when they should be fining and revoking facility licenses," she said. At least one lawsuit surrounding the Seaquarium is currently underway. Former marine animal trainer and vocal critic of the facility, Phil Demers, was sued by Seaquarium's parent company in 2023 for allegedly flying an unauthorized drone over the facility, sharing unauthorized pictures and defamation. Demers' legal counsel has denied wrongdoing. The lawsuit is still ongoing. "We will be glad if this hellhole closes, but fear for the safety of the animals under The Dolphin Company's negligence and wanton disregard for their health," Chris Carraway, staff attorney at the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, who is defending Demers, said in a statement. "Bankruptcy is the natural result of focusing on frivolous lawsuits to shut down criticism rather than providing care to animals." USA TODAY has asked the Florida FWC, USDA and NOAA if investigations will expand to other Dolphin Company-run facilities. Gulf World Marine Park is a separate entity from Gulf World Marine Institute, a nonprofit that rescues, rehabilitates and releases marine mammals and sea turtles in the Florida Panhandle.
