Even if no marine mammals are displaced by fire at the Yeisk Dolphinarium, hundreds from failing dolphinariums have nowhere to go
YEISK, Russia; TARANTO, Italy; ANTIBES, France; NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario; MIAMI, Florida––A marine mammal population of unknown size, including Black Sea dolphins, a beluga whale, sea lions, and seals, reportedly survived a September 9, 2025 fire that razed a crocodile farm on the premises of the Yeisk Dolphinarium.
Thirty crocodiles and a variety of other animals were killed, however, and the condition of the Yeisk Dolphinarium itself was not immediately reported.
(From YouTube video)
Will the Yeisk Dolphinarium marine mammals need to be moved?
Opened in 2007 at Yeisk, Russia, on the Yeisk Peninsula extending into the Sea of Azov, an arm of the Black Sea, the Yeisk Dolphinarium might potentially be beyond repair.
That would mean yet another collection of habituated captive marine mammals, few of them likely to be good candidates for successful release, will have to be relocated somewhere, compounding what is already an increasingly urgent problem for marine mammal advocates, conservationists, and the marine mammal exhibition industry itself.
One beluga sanctuary might eventually hold eight belugas
The Sea Life Trust Beluga Whale Sanctuary, funded by Whale & Dolphin Conservation and Merlin Entertainments, operators of eleven aquariums, holds two belugas evacuated from a water park in Shanghai, China, at Klettsuik Bay near Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland.
Designed to eventually accommodate up to eight belugas, the Sea Life Trust Beluga Whale Sanctuary could conceivably accept the Yeisk Dolphinarium beluga, if asked.
But that beluga and the other Yeisk Dolphinarium marine mammals may be seen as the chief assets remaining to the owners.
(Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project photo)
“Falling like dominoes”
Meanwhile, as Dolphin Project founder Ric O’Barry observed to ANIMALS 24-7 on September 10, 2025, “Dolphin abusement parks are falling like dominoes in slow motion. And our mailbox is full of questions asking us what WE are going to do with the dolphins and other whales? How are WE going to provide a better life for them now that the show is over?”
O’Barry, 85, first famed as trainer for the Flipper television series filmed at the Miami Seaquarium, has been working to end marine mammal exhibition since Earth Day 1970. A failed attempt to free a dolphin named Charlie Brown from a laboratory in the Bahamas led to many subsequent successes, usually against intense exhibition industry opposition.
This has often included opposition from governments as well, to whom marine mammal exhibition has been seen as a source of jobs and tax revenue.
(Helene O’Barry photo)
“Nobody is asking the people who made the money what they are going to do”
But the times have changed. Today governments and even collapsing marine mammal exhibition companies are increasingly often looking toward marine mammal freedom advocates for rescue from ethical and economic obligations toward whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, and sometimes other animals who are no longer making money for them, but who still need feeding and veterinary care.
“Nobody is asking government or the entrepreneurs who profited all these years what THEY are going to do to make things right.
“Doing the right thing is not even a consideration,” O’Barry fumed.
(Dolphin Project photo)
“Hanging fences underwater”
“We’re here in Taranto, Italy,” O’Barry wrote of himself and his wife Helene, his working partner of 30 years, to support our colleagues at Jonian Dolphin Conservation. They––we––have been quietly working on a sanctuary since 2017.
“I’m just the spark plug, not the engine,” O’Barry said. “All credit should go to Jonian Dolphin Conservation,” originally a marine mammal research project, not to me please. I don’t need or want the attention.
“Jonian Dolphin Conservation needs the support. Adoption is forever, and it’s expensive. They will still be paying for this rescue and retirement long after I drop this body,” O’Barry emphasized.
“Okay, that’s it, folks. Back to work hanging fence underwater,” O’Barry finished.
“When the show ends, who cleans up the mess?”
According to a Jonian Dolphin Conservation social media page, “The San Paolo Dolphin Refuge project,” begun as O’Barry said in 2017, “was inspired by Richard O’Barry,” who “visited Taranto, became familiar with our Marine Environment Research & Conservation project, and when he saw the Island of San Paolo, was enthralled.
“The island naturally lent itself to hosting a refuge for cetaceans rescued from captivity. That day the inspiration became an idea and the idea became the beginning of a unique project!”
Between hanging fence underwater, and continuing to lead and inspire generations of marine mammal advocates, old enough to be the grandfather or great-grandfather of most of them, O’Barry in an August 27, 2025 blog posting asked at greater length and further detail, When the Show Ends, Who Cleans Up the Mess?
Marineland of Antibes
“Marineland of Antibes, France, is finally closed,” O’Barry began, “and that is a good thing. To those of you who stood outside the gates and protested: take a bow. This is your victory. You are the reason the show is over, yet somehow your voices are often being left out of the conversation surrounding Marineland of Antibes’s closure.
“At Dolphin Project, we have always aimed to recognize those on the front lines. There is no question it was the many compassionate protesters who pushed authorities to finally say: enough is enough.
“But now, as dolphins languish in deteriorating tanks, the finger-pointing has begun,” O’Barry warned. “And it is aimed in the wrong direction. People are asking the animal welfare community, including Dolphin Project: ‘The shows are over, but the animals are still trapped. What are you going to do about it?’
“Why are the people who made the mess & the money not called to account?”
“As if it’s somehow our responsibility to clean up the mess left behind by the multi-billion-dollar corporations and their complicit agencies.
“Wrong question. The real question is, ‘Why aren’t Marineland of Antibes and the authorities being held accountable?’
“They created, sanctioned, and profited from a system built on capture, captive breeding, and long-term confinement. The blame lies with them, not with the activists who spent decades working to prevent this cruelty.
“Marineland of Antibes and the French government,” O’Barry emphasized, “were the primary profiteers, reaping millions through ticket sales and taxes. So why is the burden now falling on those of us who exposed and documented the abuse?
“Stop blaming the activists”
“Stop blaming the activists.
“Start asking what they – the guilty – are going to do to make it right.
“It’s time for Marineland and the government to open their check books and invest in sanctuaries for the animals they no longer profit from.”
Detailed O’Barry, “Marineland of Antibes purchased wild-caught orcas and bottlenose dolphins and deliberately bred and, in some cases, even in-bred them in small, barren tanks, with government approval.
“Created these lives for commercial gain”
“They created these lives for commercial gain, and they are responsible for them for the entirety of those lives. Authorities should have made clear from the beginning: if you profit from captivity, you are responsible until the end. You don’t get to walk away. You don’t get to quietly ship these animals off to China, Japan, Spain, or elsewhere the moment they are no longer useful to you.
“Right now,” O’Barry explained, “two orcas and 12 bottlenose dolphins remain in those tanks, bored, confused, and isolated. Boredom, in captivity, is a killer. Marineland of Antibes knows this. Marineland of Antibes does not care about the welfare of these animals. If the authorities gave them the green light, they’d pack these dolphins into crates and ship them out of the country without a second thought.
“Why is it taking so long to get these animals out?”
“Why is it taking so long to get these animals out?” O’Barry asked. “How hard is it to construct a temporary sea pen,” a task O’Barry himself has performed many times in many parts of the world, “while working on a permanent solution? The Marineland of Antibes dolphins will die in those tanks if nothing is done. It has been months since the park closed, and the dolphins are still waiting. How much longer can they wait?”
O’Barry wrote eighteen days after the French “minister for ecological transition,” Agnès Pannier-Runacher, according to La Nouvelle Republique and Agence France Presse, on September 5, 2025 “announced a project for a reception center at ZooParc de Beauval in Loir-et-Cher for the twelve dolphins currently stranded at Marineland of Antibes.
“Funding has not yet been established”
“However,” La Nouvelle Republique and Agence France Presse cautioned, “funding has not yet been established and it will not accommodate Wikie (24) and her son Keijo (12), the two orcas from the park, which closed permanently in January.
“Last year,” La Nouvelle Republique and Agence France Presse recalled, “the government refused to allow the cetaceans to leave for a park in Japan, and the transfer requested by Marineland of Antibes to parks in Spain has since been blocked by local authorities. No semi-freedom sanctuary project is operational in the medium term.”
Meanwhile, La Nouvelle Republique and Agence France Presse speculated, “As European dolphinarium closures increase and nearly 65 dolphins are likely to need a home, the future center could become the first of a European network of reception centers, along with prospective marine mammal sanctuaries in Italy (the Jonian Dolphin Conservation project) and Greece,” at Lipsi and in Crete.
(See Fly five dolphins from tanks in Greece to tanks in Florida? O’Barry says no.)
“This wasn’t in my plans at all”
“I have 35,000 animals, but I don’t have any structure to accommodate dolphins,” Beauval ZooParc general manager Rodolphe Delord told Agence France Presse.
“This wasn’t in my plans at all,” Delord said, “explaining that he had been approached by Agnès Pannier-Runacher and environmental ambassador Barbara Pompili,” Agence France Presse added.
Since ZooParc de Beauval is about 150 miles inland from the Bay of Biscay, there is no possibility of keeping the Marineland of Antibes dolphins in sea pens, short of establishing an off-site satellite facility.
Jerk-offs on the job
Confirming that Marineland of Antibes and the French authorities have been jerking off instead of addressing the issue, Agence France Presse mentioned that, “This summer, footage filmed by an NGO using a drone showing keepers sexually stimulating Keijo further highlighted the difficulty the two orcas face in continuing their confinement.”
Responded a Marineland of Antibes spokesperson, “Keijo is reaching adolescence, with increasingly strong sexual urges. In order to avoid inbreeding with his mother, but also to prevent them from fighting and injuring each other, Marineland has decided to sexually stimulate Keijo to reduce tensions.”
(Ric O’Barry Facebook page)
Marine mammals die at closed Marineland of Niagara Falls
A similar situation surrounds Marineland of Niagara Falls, never part of the same business structure as Marineland of Antibes, despite the similarity of names.
Opened in 1961 by John Holer (1935-2018), Marineland of Niagara Falls closed in mid-2024, five years after Holer’s death.
“Another beluga whale and a harbor seal have died at Marineland,” Canadian Press reporter Liam Casey revealed on September 4, 2025.
“The beluga death marks the 20th whale — 19 belugas and one killer whale — to die at the Marineland of Niagara Falls since 2019.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Trespassers caused belugas to attack each other?
“Two sources with knowledge of the latest beluga death say it happened after trespassers broke into the park in mid-August,” Casey wrote.
“One of the sources works at Marineland and the other for the Ontario provincial government. Both asked not to be named because they were not permitted to share the information publicly.
“The sources said the group of trespassers made their way to Friendship Cove, which houses the park’s male belugas. The group stirred the belugas into a frenzy, the sources said, which led to several younger belugas attacking an older one. The older beluga died a few days later.
30 belugas remain at Marineland of Niagara
“It is believed that 30 belugas remain at Marineland of Niagara, the last captive whales in Canada,” Casey continued.
“Ottawa banned whale and dolphin captivity as part of a law passed in 2019 that exempted Marineland’s animals. That law also bans the importation and exportation of whales and dolphins,” with exemptions for scientific research and transfers “in the best interest” of the animal,” Casey summarized.
Except for nine Magellanic penguins sent to the Saint Louis Zoo, and at least seven belugas who have died, Marineland of Niagara is believed to still have the inventory of belugas, four dolphins, and seals, sea lions, bears, and deer who were there when it closed.
30 marine mammal parks in nine nations
The Dolphin Company, meanwhile, owners or the most recent operators of 30 marine mammal parks in nine nations, including twelve in Mexico, the Miami Seaquarium, Gulf World, Dolphin Connection at Duck Key, Florida, and Marineland at St. Augustine, Florida, has responsibility for many times more marine mammals than Marineland of Antibes and Marineland of Niagara Falls combined.
Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware judge Laurie Selber Silverstein on September 5, 2025 “granted final approval to a bankruptcy financing request from an insolvent subsidiary of The Dolphin Company, allowing the debtor to access up to $129 million,” reported Yun Park for Law360, but that shed no immediate light on the fate of the marine mammals who may be the Dolphin Company’s main collateral.
“We’re dealing with animals,” reminds judge
“The only atypical part of this sales motion is that we’re dealing with animals,” Silverstein said at a July 24, 2025 hearing, according to Key Biscayne Independent editor Tony Winton.
“That’s going to be my question on every sale or other disposition of any animals,” Silverstein pledged. “How are they being cared for? How are they being transferred? Who is overseeing it? Do the regulators have the appropriate notice?”
Wrote Winton, “Jared Kochenas, an attorney for the Dolphin Company’s new management team, said the sales plan would be amended to specify animal safety requirements and notice to regulatory agencies.”
The Dolphin Company bankruptcy is complicated by a dispute over just who makes decisions for what remains of the company.
(The Dolphin Company photo)
$10,000 a day for contempt
“Judge Silverstein has already found [former Dolphin Company general manager Eduardo] Albor in contempt and has imposed a $10,000-a-day fine,” Winton summarized.
“Albor’s lawyers say their client is exercising his rights under the laws of Mexico, where most of the Dolphin Company’s parks operate. The new owners have alleged Albor has diverted funds from Mexican parks.
The U.S. holdings of The Dolphin Company, at least, are currently directed by a business consulting firm called Riveron, which “has not responded to questions about its plans for the Miami Seaquarium,” Winton noted.
Three marine mammal parks up for sale
Meanwhile, Gulf World, the Miami Seaquarium and Marineland of St. Augustine all have been offered for sale on commercial real estate web sites since mid-July.
“None of the facilities have listed sale prices,” noted Bea Mitchell for the entertainment industry periodical Blooloop.
“However,” Mitchell reported, “Gulf World is assessed to be worth just over $2.3 million, while Marineland and the Miami Seaquarium‘s total assessments are $4.5 million and $45.6 million, respectively.
“Via the listings, Gulf World consists of 7.98 acres of land [at Panama City Beach], while the Miami Seaquarium and Marineland of St. Augustine properties are made up of 38 acres and 6.06 acres respectively.”
(Sea to Shore Alliance photo)
Clearwater Marine Aquarium director “Buddy” Powell dies
The Clearwater Marine Aquarium in June 2025 accepted four rough-toothed dolphins who were left homeless when Gulf World closed, under criminal investigation for dolphin deaths by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The dolphins arrived at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium about a month before the July 19, 2025 death of James “Buddy” Powell, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium chief zoological officer and executive director of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute.
Powell, according to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium announcement, “began his career in the 1970s with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. His journey took him to West Africa, Belize, and back to Florida, where he led state research on marine mammals. He later became a vice president at Wildlife Trust and co-founded Sea to Shore Alliance in 2008, which merged with the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in 2019 to form the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute.”
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