IN THE HEADING "LINK OF THE DAY" we recommend other publications on topics of note. Today we advise you to read Laura Beloivan's investigation into the conditions of keeping dolphins and whales in Russian dolphinariums, published in Novaya Gazeta. We warn you that this is a hard reading - although, as noted by the author of the investigation, she deliberately "did not let in the text all the sickening bloody naturalism."
As part of her investigation, Laura Beloivan, an artist, writer, animal rights activist and head of the Seal Rehabilitation Center, visited marine mammals throughout the country. This text, the first in a series of similar materials, deals with Kitarium, Anapa Dolphinarium and other similar organizations in southern Russia - more precisely, their inhabitants who live and die in cramped corrals. As Beloivan writes, "there are bad dolphinariums, and there are dolphinariums even worse."
For example, in Anapa there was a construction site, and they put an iron barrel in the middle of the construction site, and poured water into the barrel, and only the spirit of human bestiality was hovering over the water. Soon they brought a beluga whale and two bottlenose dolphins with documents that said they were "dolphins, males": Benya, 8 years old, Zhenya, 9 years old. In 2012, they were all put in a barrel, the establishment was named Kitarium, and they began to let visitors into it. Then the "dolphins, males" died, and in their place were brought two others - watch your hands - under the same documents. They died too. The third pair (whether it is necessary to talk about the documents for the same Benya and Zhenya, who were blown away by the wind) were put in a barrel in March 2016, and they were a female and a teenager; the female died after a couple of months (there is an amazing autopsy report: practically "the death of the dolphin came from the fact that the dolphin died"), the teenager disappeared in July.
“The spirit of bestiality over water. How dolphins and whales die
caught for the fun of vacationers ", novayagazeta.ru
Recently, the State Duma proposed to ban contact zoos and mobile dolphinariums - however, while the bill on the responsible treatment of animals is coordinated and redone, it may still be a long time. So far, activists are fighting for the life of marine animals, many of which are endangered species and are caught illegally.