Dolphin facts
Common name: Dolphin
Scientific name: Delphinidae
Distribution: Temperate and tropical waters around the world
Dolphins are warm-blooded marine mammals that breathe air. Learn about these highly intelligent, sociable and playful animals, with these dolphin facts.
Dolphins in the wild
Ocean dolphins range in size from the smallest, Māui dolphin, to the largest known dolphin, the Orca or killer whale.
Dolphins are extremely powerful animals. Some species can swim up to speeds of 50kph and regularly dive to depths of up to 55 metres to forage for their favourite foods of fish and squid.
Travelling and hunting in pods, dolphins have big territories, on average around 100km².
Dolphins help keep our environment in balance by eating other animals. Scientists also see dolphins as indicators of the health of our oceans.
Dolphins communicate in many different ways – including squeaking, clicking and whistling. Each dolphin has a unique whistle – it helps them recognise each other – meaning whistles work very much like human names. They also use high-pitched clicking sounds for echolocation – to help them navigate and find food. The clicks hit objects in the water and then bounce back as echoes. This helps dolphins work out what and where objects are.
Despite what some people think, dolphins don’t communicate by smiling when they are happy. The ‘smile’ on their face is simply their jaw shape.
How we are helping dolphins
World Animal Protection has been working to educate the public on the problem of keeping dolphins and marine animals in captivity since 1991.
The only solution to ending the suffering of dolphins in entertainment venues is to end captive breeding and wild capture, for good. But this can’t happen overnight. A series of actions must be taken – now – to move us closer to this end goal.
Education - we’re exposing the cruelty through public education and engaging visitors on an emotional level. They hold the power in their hands to make sure the profitable dolphin entertainment industry ends, and no further dolphins are bred into a life of captivity.
Industry and legislative change - alongside this, we’ll continue urging governments to put an end to captive breeding. Most recently New South Wales passed a ban on captive breeding as has Canada and France. There is a global movement towards better treatment of dolphins, which includes the nations of Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, India, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, and the UK.
As well as changes from governments, major travel brands like TripAdvisor, Virgin Holidays, British Airways Holidays and Booking.com have already committed to stop selling tickets to captive dolphin shows and encounters.
Alternative experiences – we're researching and funding alternative experiences where people can observe dolphins in their natural habitat in an authentic, respectful way through the Whale Heritage Site projects and our work helping design and campaign for Coffs Harbour to become a sea sanctuary site for former performing dolphins. This is the future of dolphin-based tourism.
With our supporters’ help, the World Animal Protection team has been working with Dolphin Marine Conservation Park and Action for Dolphins since 2019 to get the proposed sea sanctuary up and running in Coffs Harbour. This brings us one step closer to giving the three remaining captive dolphins – Zippy, Bella and Jet – a new, more natural home.
Together, we can make this the last generation of dolphins kept captive to entertain tourists.
Dolphin activities for kids
Looking for something to do with the kids? We've got dolphin activities and wild facts for you. Kids can colour in our ‘under the sea’ scene and make their own dolphin mobile to show dolphins bobbing in the sea, wild and free! (Suitable for all ages)
| Download dolphin activity booklet | Download dolphin mobile craft |
End dolphin suffering
Call on the Queensland government to ban captive dolphin breeding and stop captive dolphins shows and direct interactions.
Donate to protect dolphins
Dolphins are intelligent and sociable wild animals. They belong in the ocean, not bred in captivity for entertainment.
Animal shows
Around 550,000 wild animals are undergoing intense trauma in the name of tourist entertainment worldwide.
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