JAVA, INDONESIA — As members of a traveling circus on the island of Java, life for 72 captive bottlenose and stenella dolphins is as tough as it gets. Forced to do both dangerous and clownish tricks for the public as the stars of a traveling circus, their only reward is a few dead fish for completing routines successfully. Footage of their plight is now circulating rapidly online.
The dolphins are transported from venue to venue, performing in plastic pools filled with artificial salt water and high levels of chlorine, which can cause blindness. They perform all sorts of unnatural feats, such as leaping through flaming rings. During the performances, music is blaring and the deafening roar of the audience is painful for the dolphins, known to be acoustic creatures.
Once the show is done, the dolphins are then caught in large nets, and transferred onto stretchers. Loaded onto the tarp-like stretchers, they are carted off by circus staff toward rusty old trucks. In the trucks are small individual shipping crates, half filled with water, which the dolphins are placed into. Then, the circus hits the road on the way to the next city, with trips reported to be along bumpy roads for as many as 14 hours, and possibly even longer.
Other animals forced to survive and perform in this cruel, portable operation range from otters doing oddball acts, to cockatoos doing stage tricks, and even sun bears riding tricycles are featured. The cruel traveling circuses rake in the equivalent of roughly $60,000 US dollars each month.
Though dolphins are a protected species in Indonesia, the country’s lack of enforcement on illegal captures and its poor monitoring of the welfare of these animals makes it easy and convenient for these circuses to remain in business.
