Brighton Dolphinarium

The construction of Brighton Aquarium began in 1869 and it was officially opened by HRH Prince Arthur on 12 August 1872, during the British Association meeting there. The first General Manager and Secretary was John Keast Lord, who was in poor health. Mr Frank Buckland, Mr Henry Lee and Mr A. D. Bartlett were called in to assist in running the aquarium. Mr Lee took over as Naturalist Manager after Mr Lord's death. The aquarium was redesigned in 1927. All the historical records were lost in a great storm in 1935 (Burgess 1967).

Brighton also has a long history of attempts to keep cetaceans. Mr Buckland was doubtless involved in early attempts to maintain net-entangled harbour porpoises (Buckland 1876), and James (1914) describes the birth of a calf at Brighton, to one such animal. This appears to be the first birth to a captive animal recorded in the world. Blunt (1976) mentions that Brighton had some success with keeping a beluga (white whale), but there are no details. Since Lee's (1878) extensive survey of white whale keeping to that date does not include Brighton, the animal must have arrived later.

Aquarium Entertainments Ltd, under the Directorship of the late Mr F.C. Glover and of Mr E.E. Sander, have leased the Aquarium from Brighton Corporation since 1955. In 1968 a pool was constructed to house two female bottlenose dolphins from Miami (and is now used for sea lions). A larger pool was built in 1969 (substantially the present pool) and the two dolphins, re-named Prinny and Belle through a national competition, moved into this pool in April, according to local press reports. Four more dolphins were expected from Miami for the opening of the new pool but were delayed by an airline strike. Mr D. Muir and Mr G. Panitzke were trainers. Only four dolphins were later advertised as performing (Argus 2.4.69), because the new group included a mother (Missus) and her one year old calf (Baby, now Missie). This pair were rescued stranded animals and were initially kept in the old dolphin pool.

The history of the other animals is given in the Animals List. Brighton have twice entered into arrangements with other establishments to import groups of dolphins. In 1977, in association with Scarborough, six Mexican dolphins were to be imported for Scarborough. In the event, only five could be brought and these were chilled on the journey. The sick animals were brought to Brighton for nursing, but four died. The fifth recovered and went to Scarborough. This incident is discussed further in the Welfare section.

In 1979, in association with Mr. R. Bloom, six animals were brought from Ocean Park, Hong Kong, where they had already spent some months in captivity. The animals were collected in Taiwan. There is a winter drive fishery here, for meat for human consumption and for 'predation control' as the fishermen believe that the dolphins interfere with their business. In these fisheries, all animals not selected for display are slaughtered (Hammond and Leatherwood, 1984). No appropriate expeditions are listed for Ocean Park by Hammond and Leatherwood (1984). The animals were to have gone to Clacton initially, but the pier was damaged in a storm and accommodation was found at short notice in Worthing swimming pool. Two animals (Connie and Bertie) came to Brighton and the rest were exported.

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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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amexee said:

Glad that has stopped. It seems so weird that 20=30 years ago that people could see that as acceptable, surely the human mind has not evolved that much in a generation. Probably the saddest thing I have seen was a polar beer at Seaworld in Florida, it was in its enclosure just standing there rocking from side to side, I am no tree hugger, but felt f'ing angry that someone was making money whilst sending a magnificent beast mad.

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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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amexee said:

Glad that has stopped. It seems so weird that 20=30 years ago that people could see that as acceptable, surely the human mind has not evolved that much in a generation. Probably the saddest thing I have seen was a polar beer at Seaworld in Florida, it was in its enclosure just standing there rocking from side to side, I am no tree hugger, but felt f'ing angry that someone was making money whilst sending a magnificent beast mad.

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Seasider78 said:

I always remember it being a bit of a grubby dive and never really enjoyed it when our dad took us.

Mad to think dolphins were kept in that pool but then remember seeing a killer whale at Windsor in a pool barely 5 times it's length

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