Hagenbeck's zoo opened the "Dolphinarium" 50 years ago. It remained a major attraction for 25 years. The accident is dramatic, the scene moving, the audience horrified: six dolphins are swimming in a rehearsed formation through the four-meter-deep pool when suddenly one of them turns onto its back and floats motionless. Immediately, other dolphins dive under it and hold it above water. A keeper jumps into the pool, but the panicked dolphins do not let him near. Only after agonizing minutes is it possible to pull the dying animal out of the water by its fins. Helpers immediately try to perform cardiac massage, but it is already too late. The death of the dolphin Sindbad heralds the end of the show program The fatal heart attack of the young dolphin Sindbad on May 28, 1992 heralds the end of a show program with which Hagenbeck entertained many thousands of guests for almost a quarter of a century: Since its launch exactly 50 years ago, a new, ultra-modern "dolphinarium" (back then still written with a ph instead of an f) has captivated children in particular with exciting shows in the style of the famous film and television star Flipper. In 1963, the US feature film and a year later the TV series about the clever bottlenose dolphin conquered a worldwide audience and at the same time gave zoo directors everywhere a new business idea. Five years later, the "Phantasialand" amusement park in Brühl near Bonn built the first German dolphinarium. The Berlin Zoo followed in 1970, and Hagenbeck a year later. The dolphinarium continues the tradition. "Hagenbeck needs 45,000 kilos of sea salt for the salt water that the oceanariums in Florida and California pump into their pools for free from the Atlantic," reported the "Abendblatt" at the time. "Pumping, heating and cleaning systems filter it every seven hours and keep it at a constant plus 20 degrees. This water is also used to fill the quarantine and training pools, from which the dolphins swim through a channel into the large, crystal-clear display pool." The pool is eleven meters wide, 33 meters long and up to 4.20 meters deep. The youngest Hagenbeck animal trainer, Kurt Köhrmann, picks up the dolphins in Miami: "Suspended in special stretchers, constantly sprayed with water, they flew across the Atlantic to Germany in a jet freighter." Just as the zoo shows exotic land animals in an exciting mix of the landscapes of their homeland, the pool in the hall, which cost two million German marks, is also populated by other marine mammals. The dolphins are joined by sea lions, and at the end of the 1970s a killer whale even swims in front of the stands. Ring jumps and, as a highlight, a double somersault At the premiere of the "dolphins swimming into Germany's largest water arena as nimble as torpedoes", the "Abendblatt" repeatedly registers a lot of applause: "The trainer knew how to encourage the animals to perform brilliantly. In a cheerful chat, he sold refusals as intended variations, so that the high jumps, hurdle jumps and ring jumps and, as a highlight, the double somersault backwards mortale aroused real storms of enthusiasm." The cute training cannot disguise the fact that the pools are prison cells and the flippers are prisoners who are often tortured until they have learned the required tricks. A video from Mallorca later shows what is going on: "You lazy piece of shit!" a Spanish dolphin trainer shouts, "are you stupid or are you just acting like you're acting like you're doing something? Take that damn ball or I'll hit you on the head!" Then you can see the animals being kicked and punched. Criticism from animal rights activists Animal rights activists in Hamburg also criticise the inappropriate conditions in which the dolphins are kept, the often unnatural composition of the groups and the unusual food: free-roaming dolphins do not eat dead fish. In addition, the noise and the constant proximity of people put the animals under stress. In the end, only two females are left: Susie and Kathy. Susie is sold to a zoo in Europe, where she dies shortly afterwards of pneumonia. A traumatic experience for the trainer: "I totally lost it," he reported at the time. "The next thing I remember is that a few days later I was in prison in the Bahamas because I had tried to free dolphins there," Source: MDR Save the Ocean: Homepage: https://www.save-the-ocean.de PayPal donation: [email protected] When the sea dies - humans die. Please do not buy tickets for dolphinariums. This way you only support the dolphinarium, not the animals!!! #SavetheOcean #EmptyTheTanks #Dolphinarium #NurembergTiergarten #DuisburgerZoo #DolphinRescue #Blackfish #SeaWorld #SeaAquarium #Orca #Tillikum #Lolita #Morgan #Activists #AnimalProtectionActivists #WhalesDolphins #Dolphins #Activists #AnimalProtectionActivists #Dolphins #Dolphin