Dolphin stock depleted, Clearwater Marine Aquarium counts on five from Greece to rebuild tourism
CLEARWATER, Florida––Fighting for economic survival, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium can be expected to call upon on Florida connections, including U.S. president Donald Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, to try to win a permit to import five bottlenose dolphins from the Attica Zoological Park in Athens, Greece.
The dolphins from Greece would replenish a Clearwater Marine Aquarium population diminished from nine at peak in 2021 to just five over the past three years, and perhaps rebuild attendance and revenue, both in a deep dive.
(Dolphin Project photo)
$80 million expansion chained aquarium to an anchor
The 2021 completion of the $80 million Ruth & J.O. Stone Dolphin Complex tripled the Clearwater Marine Aquarium dolphin habitat.
Expected to boost attendance and revenue, the new facilities instead became more of an anchor than a help.
Explained St. Pete Catalyst writer Bill DeYoung on January 20, 2025. “The sudden, unexpected death in November, 2021 of Winter, the facility’s star attraction, caused a serious drop-off in attendance. The bottlenose dolphin lost her tail flukes as a baby, due to entanglement in crab trap ropes, and had been successfully fitted with a prosthetic tail.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Wintermania”
“The 2011 movie Dolphin Tale, filmed on location at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, was a worldwide success. At the peak of Wintermania, more than 800,000 people passed through the turnstiles annually.”
A 2014 sequel, Dolphin Tale 2, though less popular, continued the momentum for a while.
But the $80 million expansion, the most obvious part of which was an enlarged restaurant and gift shop, ran up a significant debt.
“For the year ending September 30, 2023,” DeYoung wrote, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium reported $21,322,978 in revenue, against $26,306,149 in expenses, a net loss of nearly $5 million.”
Penguins in Florida?
Looking for new money, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in September 2024 applied to the Pinellas County Tourist Development Council for “$9.8 million in bed tax money,” reported Josh Rojas of BayNews9, the local ABC affiliate.
The sought-after grant was to partially fund “a $32 million multi-year [further] expansion plan, to include “habitats for sea lions, sharks, albino alligators, and penguins,” Rojas detailed.
“In order to qualify for the capital funding grant,” explained Rojas, “the aquarium must prove the new renovations will draw more visitors who spend the night.”
Twice as many visitors?
Said Clearwater Marine Aquarium chief operating officer Joe Handy, “That number could be in excess of a 100% increase of our current attendance. So right now, our attendance hovers at about just under 400,000 visitors per year.”
That would actually be about half the attendance that the Clearwater Marine Aquarium has claimed in media statements since Winter was alive.
Just eight days later, DeYoung narrated, on September 24, 2024 “Hurricane Helene sent four feet of water into the Clearwater Marine Aquarium buildings, which abut Clearwater Bay.
(Helene O’Barry photo)
Staff cuts
“Chief biological officer James ‘Buddy’ Powell said the facility suffered ‘catastrophic damage,’ and that ‘most’ of the facility’s life support systems had been destroyed.”
Continued DeYoung on January 20, 2025, “Still reeling from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, administrators at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) have begun dramatic cost-saving measures, including the ‘temporary furloughs’ of 22 full time and 28 part time employees, out of a combined staff of 175.
“Facility leadership, including CEO Joe Handy, are taking salary reductions.”
Attica Zoo dolphins to the rescue?
With that catastrophe in the immediate background, along with the previous debt load, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium applied to import the five Attica Zoo dolphins from Greece, described by National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Fisheries as “between the ages of 11 and 24 years, all captive-born to individuals with multiple origins, including the southeastern United States, Cuba, the Russian Federation, and the Black Sea.
“The applicant has identified three of the animals as common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and two as Black Sea bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus ponticus),” the permit application states.
The application was originally open to public comments only until February 3, 2025,” Dolphin Project founder Ric O’Barry emailed to ANIMALS 24-7.
“We urge everyone to immediately voice opposition to this transfer,” O’Barry said.
[The public comment info & link are here: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/permit-application-import-5-bottlenose-dolphins-file-no-28233-clearwater-marine-aquarium.]
Humane alternative
Objected O’Barry, “Clearwater Marine Aquarium is not a dolphin sanctuary, other than in name,” O’Barry emphasized. “It’s a huge concrete building with concrete and glass holding tanks inside the belly of the facility,” dominated by a souvenir store and restaurant.
“Flying the dolphins across the ocean is potentially dangerous for the dolphins, and upon their arrival in Clearwater, they will be placed in yet another concrete tank — a life sentence inside of a building, O’Barry said.
“A much more humane alternative,” O’Barry suggested, “would be to take the dolphins directly to the Greek islands of Lipsi or Crete,” a maximum distance of under 200 miles, “where they can live out the rest of their lives in peace and dignity.
“Plans are already underway to build two dolphin retirement facilities there,” O’Barry added, “one in Lipsi, and the other in Crete. Lipsi is farther along and could accommodate the Attica Zoo five dolphins on short notice, if the Greek government would cooperate.”
(See Fly five dolphins from tanks in Greece to tanks in Florida? O’Barry says no.)
“777 comments added”
O’Barry mentioned having already rehabilitated and released formerly captive dolphins successfully “in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Brazil, Haiti and Indonesia.”
The Attica Zoo appears to be divesting of dolphins in response to a multi-year Dolphin Project campaign, explained O’Barry, which included planning for where the dolphins might go.
By January 23, 2025, O’Barry’s wife Helene O’Barry emailed to ANIMALS 24-7, “It looks as though we now have 777 comments added, which is great. However,” she said, “I also noticed this morning that the comment deadline has been extended, not sure why.”
Trump administration brings complication
Indeed, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Fisheries acknowledged, “NOAA Fisheries received a request to extend the public comment period. We are extending the public comment period for an additional 45 days. Public comments will be accepted through March 20, 2025 at Regulations.gov. All comments received are a part of the public record.”
U.S. government agencies often extend comment deadlines upon receiving a heavy volume of comments in response to a regulatory proposal.
That by itself tends to not mean much, except that activists have more time to keep objections flowing.
Freeze on federal agency communications
But now there is an additional complication. The incoming Donald Trump administration has put a freeze on practically all federal agencies’ external communications until they get their own propaganda officers installed to control what the public knows about.
Based on the start of the previous Trump administration, 2017-2021, the second Trump administration may try to keep all actions of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service completely under wraps for as long as possible.
Inspector generals
Further, Donald Trump on January 24, 2025 attempted to fire at least 12 departmental inspector generals. The inspector generals are the officers within each federal department who are entrusted with ensuring that correct administrative procedures are followed in all transactions, among other tasks pertaining to accountability.
Responded Hannibal “Mike” Ware, chairperson of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity & Efficiency, “I recommend that you [the Trump administration] reach out to White House Counsel to discuss your intended course of action. At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed inspectors general.
“Specifically, based upon the 2022 amendments to the Inspector General Act of 1978, the President must notify Congress 30 days prior to removal of an Inspector General and provide ‘substantive rationale, including detained and case-specific reasons’ for such removal.”
Litigation appears certain to follow, during which time any department administrative actions, such as approving a dolphin import permit, may be both delayed and subject to political tampering.
More dolphins in Attica
Meanwhile, Helene O’Barry told ANIMALS 24-7, “If I’m correct, there are seven dolphins in total at Attica Zoo. The other two are the offspring of dolphins that Jay Sweeney and Gene Hamilton captured in Florida several years ago. They captured six, and one died. The survivors were sent to Finland, after being stored and trained at the Dolphin Research Center,” in Grassy Key, Florida.
“In 2016,” Helene O’Barry continued, “the dolphinarium in Finland closed due to declining ticket sales, and the dolphins were shipped to the Attica Zoo.”
Updated Helene O’Barry, minutes later, “Now it looks as if there are nine dolphins at Attica Zoo, according to CetaBase.org. If there are nine dolphins there, where on Earth are they planning to send the other four?
“According to the permit application, Attica Zoo wants to remove the dolphin exhibit permanently from its collections,” in belated compliance with Greek legislation adopted in 2012.
Fined
The Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy later in 2012 fined the Attica Zoo 44,360 euros continuing to offer dolphin shows, and on March 13, 2020, finally revoked the zoo’s permit to operate a dolphinarium.
Litigation continued, reported Skye Wardle on the Animal Action Greece website, until in October 2023 “the owners of the Attica Zoological Park, based in the suburb of Spata outside Athens, were found guilty of conducting illegal shows involving dolphins,” and “were sentenced to eight months [in prison] with a three-year suspension for the illegal use of animals.”
Wild care
Emailed Ric O’Barry to ANIMALS 24-7 on January 18, 2025, “I have a gut feeling the Clearwater Marine Aquarium will withdraw their request to import the five dolphins. Our victories are usually few and far between—and many times temporary. But I have a gut feeling we’re going to win this one,” because the Clearwater Marine Aquarium currently “can’t afford to properly take care of the animals in their building now.”
But a potential wild card is that one Dawn DeSantis was for 15 years human resources manager and volunteer coordinator at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, beginning in 2004.
How closely related Dawn DeSantis may be to Ron DeSantis, and if she even knows him personally, ANIMALS 24-7 has been unable to determine.
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