Meet some of the dolphins TUI is profiting from

Azteca 

Azteca is a 28-year-old female at Dolphin Discovery Isla Mujeres. She has a wound on her chest that has not healed properly and the creases under her chin are indicative of the common posture of dolphins in captivity, where they are flexing their heads to ‘stand upright’ in an unnatural position during interactions or shows.

Many dolphins in venues promoted by TUI are trained to perform unnatural behaviours such as ‘tail walking’, where dolphins ‘walk on water’ moving forwards on their tails at the surface. Food is sometimes withheld before shows or tourist interactions so that the performing animal is hungry and fish can be used as an incentive to perform tricks.

Kanab

Kanab is a 32-year-old dolphin at Delphinus Puerto Morelos in Mexico. His teeth are worn down and one tooth is missing. Dolphins often wear their teeth down by biting at the concrete walls, gates or other structures. He also has depigmentation of his frontal rostrum or ‘snout’ which is indicative of repeated injury.

When the venue was visited by researchers in 2024, Kanab was living in a sea pen with a depth of less than 2m. The depth a dolphin may dive to depends on the species, the abundance of prey and the geographical distribution, but some species of dolphins regularly dive down 55m while hunting in the wild. Many tanks at venues holding dolphins are designed for tourists and not for the animals.

Pakal

Pakal is living at Delphinus Playa Mujeres in Mexico. He has chronic wounds at the base of his tail and depigmentation of his snout, which can be indicative of repeated injury.

When researchers visited, Pakal was being used to give tourists a ‘foot-push’ with another dolphin. This is when dolphins are trained to swim while forcibly pushing a person across the water’s surface sometimes even lifting them partially out of the water by their feet, so this would have caused repeated pressure on his snout.

A number of parks our researchers visited are reducing these socially complex predators to circus-style performances where they are given thawed from frozen fish as an incentive to perform tricks.

TUI Group continues to profit from venues that do not meet the company’s animal welfare claims. Many dolphins in venues sold by TUI Group are kept in small, barren, onshore tanks and some in sea pens. The amount of space and quality of the environment is a far cry from what they would experience in the wild.  

Both older and pregnant dolphins are being used in performances as well as mothers being used in interactions while calves are distracted at the side of the enclosure. Also, many dolphins have health problems such as eye lesions, teeth problems, signs of excessive aggression, skin lesions and other conditions indicative of stress exposure. 

Whales and dolphins are not entertainers and can never thrive in a tank. It is time for TUI Group to take accountability and stop selling tickets and promoting captive cetacean venues. 

TUI Group not only continues to profit from dolphin captivity, but it actually states in its animal welfare policy that it does not sell breeding venues while continuing to sell them, misleading customers into believing that it is at least attempting to move in the right direction.