Melisa Sevim was 12 years old when she first encountered a dolphin, during a birthday trip to the local marine park with her mother.
While waiting eagerly to swim with one of the dolphins, she watched the people in front of her. Each one would hold onto the dolphin’s dorsal fin as it moved through the water. After a while, the dolphin would dive away from the passenger, and resurface close to where a trainer was throwing out fish.
“When I swam, I insisted on diving with the dolphin. But he hit me hard on the stomach with his tail and went to eat. That is when I understood. He did not want to swim with me. He hated me. The only thing he desired was food. Your favourite animal hates you – it is a terrible feeling,” she told Inside Turkey.
Sevim later became a trainer herself, but she quit the job several years ago – because in her words, she no longer wanted to “earn money from the dolphins’ misery”.
Sevim asked for the name of the park she worked at to be withheld, but there are ten in total in Turkey. Most are located in tourist spots such as Bodrum, Istanbul, Kemer, Antalya and Kuşadası, home to bottlenose dolphins as well as a few beluga whales, sea lions and fur seals. Dolphins are either imported from other countries or are caught in Turkish waters, even though the latter was made illegal in 1983.
According to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), Turkey imported 75 dolphins between 2005 and 2017. Of these, 54 were caught at sea and 18 were born in captivity.
Öykü Yağcı, a member of the Freedom for Dolphins NGO, said that the owners of the marine parks claim that all their animals were born in captivity to avoid public criticism.
“The data shows that it is not true. We have contacts from these parks. All of them say that marine animals are captured. Even worse, when they die, it is not recorded. They are replaced with others captured from Turkish waters,” she told Inside Turkey.
The first few months that dolphins spend in the parks are the most perilous, because they often refuse to eat the dead fish they are offered. According to Yağcı, death rates for dolphins are six times higher than the norm in their first month of captivity.
“No dolphin eats dead fish in the wild,” said Arda Tonay, a researcher at Istanbul University’s Faculty of Aquatic Sciences and vice president of the Turkish Marine Research Foundation.
“A dolphin would have to have a health problem or be unable to hunt to eat dead fish,” he told Inside Turkey.
Melisa Sevim gave an example of a male dolphin, who she called Darling, caught at too old an age to adapt to captivity.
“He was refusing to eat. As if he was saying he would die if it was necessary. He was the most upset living being I have ever seen,” she said.
Getting used to eating dead fish is essential before training can begin. Once the dolphins get used to being fed by hand, they can learn all the movements necessary for the shows, such as jumping, hitting a ball and passing through a circle.
According to Sevim, training can occasionally be violent, although in her opinion that is a rarity.
“I only knew one violent person at the park where I worked. Most of them [the trainers] adored dolphins. The majority came from poor countries such as Mexico and Jamaica or poor communities in Russia. They were unhappy about the situation of the dolphins, but they needed the money,” she said.
For Yağcı, however, there is a wider ethical problem.
“People react when violence is involved. But no one should forget that being captive itself is torture,” she said
In the wild, dolphins can travel long distances, but in captivity their movement is far more restricted.
“For animals used to swimming hundreds of kilometres a day, being inside the tanks is not different from being inside a prison,” Yağcı said. Both Yağcı and Tonay, the marine biologist, said that living in tanks causes chronic stress and psychological problems.
“Giving antidepressants – such as valium and diazepam – and stomach medications to dolphins is a common practice in these parks,” Yağcı said.
“One of the most common signs of depression in dolphins is standing vertically on the water,” Sevim said. “Tail down, head up, they go up and down. The other signs are staying still, oscillating on the water, and refusing to eat. This is not normal behaviour.”
Small pools also lead dolphins to fight more, raising the risk of injuries. For all these reasons, a dolphin’s usual lifespan of 45 years in the wild is reduced to an average of five years in captivity.
According to Sevim, dolphins sometimes also behave aggressively towards visitors. She gave an example of a dolphin who hated children.
“When a child entered the pool, the dolphin would become aggressive. In one swimming session, he did not allow a child to hold him. He was jumping on top of the water,” Sevim said, adding that dolphins try to attack perceived threats. “I tried to pull the dolphin away. I was scared but did not let people understand what was happening.”
According to Yağcı, this is not an isolated incident.
“Between 1970 and 2010, more than 70 [dolphin] attacks were reported around the world. Fifteen of them resulted in the death of either the animal or the human,” she said.
Freedom for Dolphins has been campaigning for the past ten years to close Turkey’s dolphin parks. Their campaign has prevented the opening of new dolphin parks in Izmir and Tuzla. Two existing parks, in Fethiye and Kas, have closed after long campaigns by local and international activists, with support from artists, writers and some members of the public.
“Since there was no legal regulation, they got licenses by saying the dolphins would be used for therapy, or simply by using restaurant licenses. Most of the owners of these parks are from the entertainment industry and have close relations with the municipalities or politicians,” Yağcı said.
In Bodrum in September 2019, a newly-elected mayor tried to cancel the local dolphin park’s license but was defeated in a court challenge brought by the owner. Something similar happened in Marmaris the following July.
In July 2021, a new Animal Rights Act came into force in Turkey. Despite pressure from animal rights activists, it allows dolphin parks to operate for at least another ten years.
“It is not clear what will happen ten years from now,” said Yağcı. “Previously, there was no legal permission to open a dolphin park. They were opened under different labels. We are now worried that it will be fully legalised.”
The new law forbids existing parks from replacing animals that die or are moved elsewhere, or from opening new branches. However, Yağcı believes that the fines for breaking these rules, which are set at 25,000 liras each, are too low to act as a deterrent, since parks charge up to 35,000 liras a time for private sessions with dolphins.
“There are many reports of illegal capturing in Turkish waters. It is illegal, but the government is ignoring it. Prohibitions are meaningless unless there are sanctions,” she said.
According to Tonay, catching dolphins for use in captivity adds extra pressure to a wild population already under threat from pollution, the overfishing of the food they eat and being accidentally caught by commercial fishing vessels. Black Sea bottlenose dolphins, which live partly in Turkish waters, are on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s ‘red list’ of endangered species.
“It is not acceptable to confine this species to parks while each individual is important to the population,” he said.
“You don’t need to go to the dolphin park to see dolphins. We can attend dolphin watching tours and observe their behaviour in the natural environment. Dolphin parks cannot be the way to encourage a love of animals.”