Last June, the Curaçao Animal Rights Foundation protested that the Aquarium had sent five dolphins by cargo plane to Saudi Arabia, despite the group having filed a lawsuit to stop it. Apparently the income loss from the pandemic led to their selling some captive dolphins. We had scuba'd past those remaining dolphins, not fit enough to travel but still regularly performing shows, and a single surviving shark, behind chain-link fences.

In 2019, people protested the captivity of a dolphin named Angel. According to news reports, the protests were sparked by a video that circulated online showing Angel repeatedly hitting her head against the walls of her tank, a sign of severe anxiety, at best. Furthermore, people have protested the Aquarium's environmental impact, arguing that it pollutes the surrounding marine environment and damages coral reefs.

It's a shame that an island with such easy access to the water and the opportunity to see the marine life in its natural environment provides such a circus for non-swimming tourists. Shark Bytes, a book by Undercurrent senior editor John Bantin, tells how the same facility once had a shark channel where several nurse sharks and lemon sharks were trapped behind clear acrylic screens that were invisible in photographs. Scuba divers could pay to feed the sharks with slivers of fish they pushed through small holes in the screens. Thankfully, we saw no sign of that on our March trip.

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