After years of living alone in a swimming pool in an abandoned aquarium, the honey dolphins are finally dying in silence.
“The world’s loneliest dolphin” is the nickname activists and animal lovers around the world give to Honey, the dolphin that lives in a small pool in Inubosaki Marine Park in Choshi, Chiba Prefecture.
A video shot in October 2018 shows Honey dolphins alone in an aquarium. He barely moves on the water. At that time, Hai Duong Park was closed for several months. Honey is one of the few animals left in this abandoned amusement park, along with several penguins. Every few days they are fed by an employee.
Honey burns her skin under the hot summer sun, stress and loneliness. A representative from PETA wrote in 2018: “In a natural environment, dolphins swim and play with a flock in the great outdoors. But for Honey, her life is spent all day floating in water tanks. Being locked up. alone and have repetitive stereotypes – signs of stress in captive animals “.
Dolphin Project, an organization that protects dolphins, published Honey’s story in 2018 and is constantly fighting for the animal to retire in peace. In November 2018, this organization discovered that the management board of Inubosaki Marine Park was in debt, urgently having to sell all the facilities. In 2019, the entire park with honey and other animals will be transferred to the new owner, according to Kaisou Medical Center, the park’s animal health care unit.
In February 2020, the Dolphin Project contacted animal welfare groups in Japan again to agree on Honey’s fate. But the conversations ended a month later when Honey was in dire straits. He can hardly live any longer.
After nearly two years in the pool alone, Honey passed away on March 29, 2020, according to the Dolphin Project. Honey’s story once caused a stir in international public opinion, but it also couldn’t change the fate of the world’s loneliest dolphin.
“The honey plight has caught the attention of the whole world and created an animal rights movement in Japan. However, it still cannot escape the man-made environment it has endured from the start. honey will remain a typical example for dolphins living in captivity for many years to come. ”writes the Dolphin Project.
