Brighton Dolphinarium

kevtherev said:

There is another side of the argument. Polar Bears are on the endangered spices list and are being hunted to extinction. Is it better to try and keep the species going by breeding some in captivity, or just let them fade away into extinction and just become another great animal that once walked this earth.

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kevtherev said:

There is another side of the argument. Polar Bears are on the endangered spices list and are being hunted to extinction. Is it better to try and keep the species going by breeding some in captivity, or just let them fade away into extinction and just become another great animal that once walked this earth.

Click to expand...

daveinprague said:

Its a difficult balance between animals dying out, and conservation. Making the things perform is out of order, but I think there should be some conservation, but really in much bigger enclosures if they are going to do it...and just endangered species, not every animal thats knocking about.
I went to the zoo in Prague a few weeks ago with a visitor and her little one..im not proud, it was host duty.... the polar bear was clearly insane, with repetative backward strokes in the small pool.... for all the time we stood there, and was doing the same on the way back out... but then again, how big an enclosure would be sufficient for a creature like a polar bear.. im torn between the points.

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Meade's Ball said:

I remember they had a plastic ball pit type enclosure that any youngster could dive into and crawl through, disappearing into as the equally playful parents pretended they didn't know where their offspring was, but instead of balls it was full to the average adult human waistline with a variety of crabs. There were the miniature ones such as the Pea Crab that sometimes wriggled their way unknowingly into an innocent back passage and had to be returned later when pwarped free, and the skin-scraping behemoths such as the Spiny Spider Crab to which not a child left the sandy sty without bleeding thanks to. I was in there for about twenty minutes screaming and stamping and chewing insanely on eyepoles. It was horrendous. Even worse was that to fix wounds on departure you'd walk through a paddling pool of leeches and other unnameable sucklers. They had a photo of me near the entrance to the dolphinarium with my clothes fully ripped and cuts drawn across my face with the jagged-edged snapped half-shells torn from the backs of the crustaceans that angered me first and most. This snap was of course there to prevent my return, successfully. I was pleased when the emporium of animalistic fiendishness closed, but the whispers of that pit of scraping claws remain with me today.

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house your seagull said:

I thought I'd start a thread about the Dolphinarium.

I have done a bit of digging and found some stuff.

First, some history ... did you know that there were Belugas down there once? Nowadays the only Belugas you'll find in Brighton are in the 1901 club, spread on blinis .

I also see that the Dolphinarium recorded the first ever captive birth. How about that!



I preusmed the dolphins were from Scotland or something, not flown in from Miami.

Here's the Sea Lion pool ...

The Brighton Dolphins were part of a programme to return them to the wild in the early 90s, but no one can prove this was successful unfortunately and the Dolphins weren't seen after a day or two of being released.

There's a guy who seems a bit of an expert of UK Dolphinariums and on a forum I just read he was blaming Brighton's relatively large amount of animal-rights activists for the reason behind the Dolphinarium being shut down.

What are your memories of the place? It seems odd to think such a thing would exist now.

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kevtherev said:

There is another side of the argument. Polar Bears are on the endangered spices list and are being hunted to extinction. Is it better to try and keep the species going by breeding some in captivity, or just let them fade away into extinction and just become another great animal that once walked this earth.

Click to expand...

maltaseagull said:

Is there a charity to donate too?

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8ace said:

Coriander in Need or Cumin Relief

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sydney said:

i remember some pretty stressed out animals at chessington zoo back in the 70's.........it is good to show people exotic animals but how they are housed is a very difficult conundrum.

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house your seagull said:

Here's the main pool ... I remember seeing kids being put in a boat if it was their birthday and being dragged around by the dolphins.

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turienzo's lovechild said:

where was this place?

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turienzo's lovechild said:

where was this place?

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