This Thursday, the Walloon Government is set to vote on what would be the most serious rollback in animal welfare Wallonia has ever seen. The Minister for Animal Welfare, Adrien Dolimont (MR), has included in his revision of the Walloon Animal Welfare Code a measure that would — by way of an exemption — reauthorise the keeping of cetaceans. The item is on this Thursday’s Council of Ministers agenda.
Sensitive animals with complex needs
Dolphins are sensitive, intelligent and deeply social marine mammals. In the wild, they travel vast distances — up to 100 kilometres a day, roughly the equivalent of Brussels to Bruges.
In captivity, everything shrinks. At Boudewijn Seapark in Bruges, for example, the main pool is about 37 metres long, 13 metres wide and barely 6 metres deep — plainly inadequate.
And beyond size, there is the emptiness: a concrete tank, filtered water, smooth walls. Nothing to explore — no sea floor, no currents, no rocks, no plants, no wildlife. It’s a barren, repetitive environment, the opposite of the ocean where everything is constantly changing.
For a curious, social animal, it’s like living in a bathtub: you can survive there, but you cannot truly live.
Deprived of stimulation and confined to this impoverished, repetitive setting, dolphins can develop chronic stress and stereotypical behaviours. Their social and cognitive needs cannot be met: by their very nature, dolphinariums are incapable of meeting dolphins’ ethological requirements.
A concrete tank is not a sanctuary
This measure would mainly benefit Pairi Daiza, under the banner of creating a “sanctuary”. But a concrete tank in a zoo does not become a sanctuary just because it is renamed.
A true sanctuary is at sea, in a protected natural area, and aims to offer dolphins already in captivity living conditions as close as possible to their natural environment.