Bali Hotel Kept Dolphins In Swimming Pool For 15 Years; They Went Blind & Lost Their Teeth

Dolphins are some of the smartest creatures on earth.

Possibly smarter than our boss, so it is all the more upsetting when you hear news of these hyper-intelligent creatures being mistreated in some way.

In Melka Excelsior Hotel in Bali, two dolphins, Dewa and Johnny have been permanently injured.

Dewa has lost all his teeth and will never be able to catch fish again while Johnny is blind in both eyes and has also lost all of his teeth.

The side effects are due to extreme chlorine toxicity.

In the Instagram post below, you can see that Dewa has developed some serious behavioural issues:

 

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Thank you Yahoo News Australia for the continued coverage on the dolphins we rescued from Melka Hotel in Bali! More people need to know about what dolphins go through in captivity so they’ll start saying no to dolphin shows! Watch the full video by clicking the link in our bio.⁠ #DolphinProject #DontBuyATicket #EmptyTheTanks #FreeBaliDolphins #StopSirkusLumba

A post shared by Dolphin Project (@dolphin_project) on Oct 9, 2019 at 11:47pm PDT

Dewa’s body was covered in scratches as the pool he lived in was filled with sharp ceramic tiles.

However, there’s still reason to smile even if it’s a little too late for the dolphins to make a full recovery.

Ric O’ Barry’s Dolphin Project a non-profit dedicated to the welfare and protection of dolphins worldwide managed to rescue the two bottle-nosed dolphins.

In a post on dolphinproject.com, pictures were shared of the rescue:

In the dolphinproject.com article, it was mentioned that Dewa and Johnny were forced to interact with paying tourists, but are now swimming in natural seawater.

Day after day, week after week the dolphins were forced to perform tricks and get “manhandled” by tourists in “dolphin therapy” sessions.

There were several other animals such as two leaf monkeys, three saltwater crocodiles, snakes, birds and porcupines that were kept inside a “mini zoo” in the hotel. The creatures were kept in concrete and steel cages in complete darkness.

The rescue effort began after The Central Jakarta Forestry Department received several complaints about the animal abuse and got in touch with Ric and his team from Dolphin Project.

Upon reading the report by Project Dolphin, Ms Indra Exploitasia, Director of Biodiversity Conservation and Directorate General of Natural Resources and Ecosystem Conservation, Ministry of Environment and Forestry called for the immediate confiscation of the animals.

Project Dolphin worked together with the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry to mount the rescue.

A happy ending to a sad tale.