A dolphin attack during a show at the Miami Seaquarium was caught on film.
The Flipper Dolphin Show at the 38-acre facility on Virginia Key in Biscayne Bay was briefly thrown off course on Sunday when a dolphin appeared to attack one of its trainers — pushing violently several times as the trainer tried to move away. The trainer eventually exited the pool and was briefly attended to by a colleague while the show continued.
Photographer Shannon Carpenter, who was attending the show with his family, filmed the incident and posted it to TikTok.
According to Carpenter, the incident took place roughly 10 minutes into the half hour-long programme. After the show, the trainer who had the run-in with the dolphin was transported away from the sprawling oceanarium by ambulance.
Naomi Rose, a Marine Mammal Scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute, told Newsweek that the dolphin clearly assaulted the trainer and that members of the species “rarely do anything accidentally”.
The incident has raised new questions about the ethics of keeping dolphins in captivity and making them perform for paying audiences at facilities like this one in Miami. Dolphins are thought to be highly social animals that, like many mammals, can respond poorly to stressful situations. It is believed that there are roughly 3,000 dolphins held captive around the world.
This is not the first time the Miami Seaquarium has been under scrutiny in recent years. The facility ran afoul of the US Department of Agriculture when government officials found several animal welfare violations at the oceanarium during an inspection last year.
It has long been the target of protest from animal rights groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) due to its status as the home of a 56-year-old orca whale named Lolita. Orcas are an endangered species, and just around 20 are held in captivity today.
PETA, which has sued the oceanarium, claiming that Lolita lives in the “smallest orca tank in the world” and has been unable to dive or swim any meaningful distance during its half-century long “imprisonment”. It has alleged other abuses as well, including the frequency with which Lolita is forced to perform for paying audiences.
In a statement provided to WPLG Local 10 in Miami, the Seaquarium said that the dolphin and the trainer “accidentally collided.”
“This was an uncomfortable interaction for both of them and the dolphin reacted by breaking away from the routine and striking the trainer,” the statement read.
