- Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa is to end sourcing dolphins from the wild and has suspended a captive breeding program, according to sources.
- The company is assembling a team of experts to decide the future of more than 20 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, most of which were captured from the Solomon Islands in 2008 and 2009.
- The resort has maintained the dolphins are well cared for and the exhibit at Singapore’s Oceanarium serves educational and conservation purposes.
- Experts say that rehabilitation and release of the dolphins is possible, with transfer to a natural sea pen the first step for assessment.
SINGAPORE — The Resorts World Sentosa casino and entertainment complex in Singapore has halted sourcing dolphins from the wild for its aquarium, Mongabay has learned.
The resort’s Oceanarium has also suspended its breeding program, according to insiders.
The facility is assembling a panel of experts to determine the future of the more than 20 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) it has held since 2013.
RWS has not announced any formal policy regarding the dolphins and declined to comment.
Multiple visits by Mongabay to the Oceanarium were unable to confirm the exact number of animals held at its Marine Mammal Habitat, although trainers said no additional dolphins were being captured or bred.
The last dolphin born at the facility was Kenzo, a male now 7 years old, staff said during a visit in March.
Uncertainty over the fate of Singapore’s captive dolphins comes amid a growing global shift against keeping cetaceans in captivity, as awareness grows of their intelligence, complex social structures, and poor welfare in confined environments.
In June 2025, Mexico became the latest country to ban the captivity of cetaceans for entertainment, joining Canada, France, India, Chile, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Taiwan is also phasing out cetacean performances.
But countries including China, Japan and some in the Middle East continue to source dolphins for newly built aquariums as they expand marine attractions aimed at boosting tourism.
RWS originally sourced 27 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins from the Solomon Islands in 2008 and 2009. The Dolphin Island exhibit opened to the public on Sentosa, Singapore’s resort island, in 2013.
Their capture, organized by international dolphin trader Christopher Porter, drew widespread criticism from animal welfare groups in Singapore and the Philippines, where the dolphins were initially held for training before being transported to Sentosa.
When news of the capture first emerged, Louis Ng, founder of the Singapore animal welfare charity Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES), launched a widely supported petition calling on Singapore to block the import. The campaign sparked a national debate over the ethics of keeping cetaceans in captivity for entertainment.
ACRES later ran a long campaign, “The world’s saddest dolphins,” urging RWS to release the animals. The effort ultimately failed, though the group continues to oppose holding marine mammals in captivity.
A 2019 video posted by advocacy group Empty the Tanks showing a dolphin repeatedly banging its head against the wall of its enclosure renewed calls for the animals’ release.
At least four of the original 27 dolphins died during transit or from infections between 2010 and 2014. No recent deaths have been reported.
RWS has said the dolphins receive high standards of care and that the facility adheres to international guidelines set by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA). The company also maintains the exhibit provides educational and conservation value.
Singapore’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals told Mongabay that dolphin education does not require captivity, and that such facilities cannot claim conservation benefits if they are not part of species recovery and reintroduction programs.
Anbarasi Boopal, former co-chief executive of ACRES, said the reported decision to halt sourcing and breeding wild dolphins was a positive step. However, she called for transparency about whether the facility might import captive-bred dolphins in the future, and urged RWS to disclose long-term plans for the animals already held there.
“If the decision was based on recognition of welfare concerns of keeping marine mammals in captivity and shifting public, policy, government and facilities’ attitudes towards this issue, that would be long overdue progress for animal welfare in Singapore,” she said.
RWS declined to comment for this story.
‘Better off in captivity’
During visits in November 2025 and March 2026, Mongabay observed dolphins housed in seven interconnected pools roughly 5 meters (16 feet) deep.
Security around the exhibit is tight. The facility is accessible only by elevator, and cameras are not permitted inside the facility. One security staff member said activists were a concern.
Staff would not confirm the number of dolphins held, saying only that there were “more than 20.” Most pools contained four or five animals. One dolphin was housed alone in a small circular pool with a single artificial kelp frond as enrichment.
Visitors can observe dolphins from the poolside, wade into the water with them, or snorkel with them. These experiences range from S$110 to S$1,440 ($86 to $1,125).
Educational content at the exhibit focuses largely on dolphin anatomy and where visitors may or may not touch the animals.
One trainer said disease prevention was a constant concern for the facility’s veterinarians. Captive dolphins are vulnerable to illnesses such as morbillivirus, a respiratory and neurological disease that can spread through rainwater runoff. The dolphins receive daily health checks.
Some staff expressed doubts about the animals’ prospects in the wild. One trainer said the dolphins had spent too long in captivity to survive outside the facility, while another suggested polluted and dangerous ocean conditions meant they might be better off remaining in human care.
Release is possible
Lincoln O’Barry, campaign coordinator of the dolphin protection group Dolphin Project, said rehabilitation and potential release of Singapore’s captive dolphins would require careful management and observation, but could not be ruled out.
O’Barry previously campaigned against RWS acquiring dolphins from the Solomon Islands, where dolphin hunting is a centuries-old practice that uses canoes and the sound of banged rocks to herd the animals into shallow water.
Last November, it was reported that the Solomon Islands government had approved the capture of 50 dolphins from local waters to be sold to international aquariums.
Now based on the Indonesian island of Bali, O’Barry helps to manage Umah Lumba, a rehabilitation, release and retirement facility for former performing dolphins that Dolphin Project funds.
He said transferring captive dolphins to coastal sanctuaries is the first step toward assessing whether release might be possible.
“Some dolphins can adapt after years in captivity, some can’t,” O’Barry said. “It’s like prison — some people walk out after decades like nothing happened, while others can lose their minds.”
Sea pens are where “the healing starts,” said O’Barry, whose organization recently released dolphins that had been part of a traveling circus in Indonesia.
In a sea pen, the dolphins can feel the rhythm of the ocean, interact with other marine life, hear other dolphins in the area, and dive much deeper than in a concrete tank, he said.
The RWS dolphins could be assessed in a sea pen in Singapore waters, checking for traits such as their ability to catch live fish, O’Barry said.
Rob Lott of the group Whale and Dolphin Conservation said captive-born dolphins would face particular challenges adapting to the wild. However, animals descended from wild-caught mothers may have better chances of adapting.
The U.K.-based conservation group helped set up a coastal sanctuary for beluga whales in Iceland in 2019.
Ideally, Lott said, any release should return the dolphins to the genetically distinct population from which they were captured — in this case the Solomon Islands — a process likely to involve complex political, legal and financial hurdles.
Reputational risk
The captive dolphins have cast a shadow over RWS’s sustainability credentials.
While the Oceanarium is widely promoted in Singapore — with advertising featuring its hammerhead sharks — the dolphin exhibit is notably absent from marketing campaigns.
The dolphins are also not mentioned in RWS parent group Genting Singapore’s most recent sustainability report. The company has, however, invested S$5 million ($3.9 million) in biodiversity conservation projects focused on Singapore’s southern islands, where wild dolphins have occasionally been sighted.
Darian McBain, former chief sustainability officer of seafood giant Thai Union Group and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said captive dolphins pose reputational risks for companies seeking to demonstrate environmental leadership.
“Firstly, the ethics of keeping highly intelligent and sentient beings in captivity where they cannot express natural behaviors,” she said. “No amount of veterinary care or good diet can change their restrictive and unnatural environment.”
Research finds that dolphins confined to enclosures up to 200,000 times smaller than their natural range can experience severe psychological stress. Captivity has been likened to torture, as dolphins are self-aware, social and experience a wide range of emotions, including empathy.
McBain also noted that Indigenous leaders from across several Polynesian islands recognized legal personhood for cetaceans in 2024, granting whales and dolphins inherent rights including freedom of movement and legal standing to seek protection. (The Solomon Islands wasn’t part of that group.)
While the agreement is not yet binding law, McBain said it could create future litigation risks for facilities that continue to keep cetaceans in captivity.
“Even if local visitors are not concerned, international visitors might be,” she said. “Long-term financial stability — and potentially access to finance — might require a change in business practices to align current practices with stated sustainability values.”
Banner image: Visitors are silhouetted against a dolphin exhibit on Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at the Marine Life Park at Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore. Image by AP.
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Citations:
Reiss, D., & Marino, L. (2001). Mirror self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: A case of cognitive convergence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(10), 5937-5942. doi:10.1073/pnas.101086398
Charles, A., Mercera, B., & Delfour, F. (2021). Bottlenose dolphins’ (Tursiops truncatus) visual and motor laterality depending on emotional contexts. Behavioural Processes, 187, 104374. doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2021.104374
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