France has banned all captive breeding of orcas and dolphins while increasing the requirements for the aquariums that are keeping them!

France recently released great news for all fans of animal welfare, which has banned all breeding of whales and dolphins. This means that the captive orcas and dolphins in France will be the last ones ever kept in captivity in that country ever gain, which is a huge win for animal rights groups in France.

After the release of the movie Blackfish, many animal right groups have been fighting vigorously for the ban of keeping whales and dolphins in captivity, and laws such as this one is a good step towards reaching this goal. Sea World has already announced that they will stop breeding of orcas, and now it seems like the European countries are also beginning to go in this direction.

A bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncates), one of the most commonly found captive dolphin species. Image by NOAA Photo Library, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

In addition to the ban on breeding whales and dolphins, aquariums that keep these are not allowed to purchase or otherwise get new individuals to the park, so the ones living there currently are the last ones to be seen in France. The law also gives the whales and dolphins a required larger aquarium, and the minimum required space will be an additional 150 % compared to the minimum from before. I could not find an exact number for the requirement anywhere, but a bigger tank is definitely good news for the ones that are kept there.

The same law also prohibits people to be allowed to swim and interact with the animals, so they can live in a more natural environment then they currently do.

The establishments that keep whales and dolphins are obviously not thrilled with this new law, but they only have three years to upgrade their tanks before they will be getting punished for breaking the law.

There are still many other countries which keep whales and dolphins in captivity that does not have good laws to protect them, but this is a good step in the right direction. We as citizens need to demand similar laws in our own countries if we want to protect that animals that are kept in captivity, and hopefully more countries will take zoo animal rights seriously in the future.

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