What?

A dolphin started to display psychotic behaviour after spending 15 years in captivity and held in a confined space.

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It was caught on video splashing above the surface of the water and trying to hurl itself over the confines of its enclosure, which was a hotel swimming pool.

Where?

Melka Excelsior Hotel is in northern Bali.

The bigger story

Five bottlenose dolphins were kept in a hotel swimming pool where they were forced to swim with paying tourists and live in terrible conditions for more than a decade.

The hotel also had other animals held in concrete and steel cages.

These included three saltwater crocodiles, two leaf monkeys, several birds, snakes and porcupines,

The dolphins were eventually rescued by Dolphin Project and the other animals were confiscated by the Indonesia Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

Most of the animals were evacuated in August 2019.

The last two dolphins to be saved, Johnny and Dewa, are now relocated to a sanctuary in West Bali National Park.

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However, living in a chlorine pool for such a long time caused Dewa to lose its teeth and is unable to catch fish, while Johnny has been left with no teeth as well, and blind, as a result of chlorine toxicity, and would not be able to live in the wild.

They were transported to the sanctuary on Oct. 8, 2019.

The sanctuary is an enclosed pen in the sea.

One out of five dolphins died on the day of rescue

In total, four dolphins were freed from captivity.

The fifth dolphin did not make it out alive as it died on Aug. 3, just days before the rescue.

What were the dolphins made to do?

The mammals were forced to perform under deplorable conditions, doing tricks, manhandled by tourists in swim-with-dolphins sessions, and used in so-called “dolphin therapy” programmes in the hotel.

The other animals formed a mini zoo inside the hotel, held in darkness in concrete and steel cages.

After receiving several complaints about the Melka Excelsior Hotel, the Central Jakarta Forestry Department asked Dolphin Project to investigate.

The Ministry of Environment and Forestry then called for the immediate confiscation of all the animals.

Dolphins on edge

Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) told Yahoo News Australia that the dolphin caught on camera behaving wildly was suffering.

“The pool where Dewa was kept was made of old very sharp ceramics,” Femke den Haas from JAAN said.

“He was filled with scratches and he also showed psychotic behaviour like he was trying to jump out of the pool.”

Ric O’Barry from Dolphin Project worked undercover to observe Dewa and the four other dolphins held at the Melka Excelsior Hotel.

“They were bringing in groups from Russia to be healed by these pathetic, sick dolphins who can’t even heal themselves,” he told Yahoo News Australia.

“There were a lot of customers from Australia, people who brought their children there to be ‘healed’ by dolphins.

“They’ve sold them this can of worms.”

O’Barry, who worked on the 1996 film Flipper and was a dolphin trainer, described the dolphins’ enclosures as being like a “toilet bowl”.

“Dolphins urinate and defaecate three to five times the quantity that a human will,” he said.

“So when you have five dolphins dumping all day in a swimming pool -- you can’t see it floating around, if the tourists did, they wouldn’t get in the water.

“But it blends in with the water and the way they counter the filth is to put in heavy loads of chlorine which causes the dolphins to go blind."

Healing and free

Upon release into the sanctuary, the dolphins moved to the centre of the pool and clung close to each other.

O’Barry said the Dewa’s aggressive behaviour immediately subsided.

“I think we can heal his mental issues at the sanctuary, at least to some degree,” he said.

“Dewa can now experience the changing of the tides, the sounds of the sea, see the stars, feel the rain.

“All of these things he’s been missing for the last 15 years are now available to him.”

Dolphin Project worked with Indonesian Natural Resources Conservation Centre (BKSDA) and the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN).