Featured Image Credit: Paul Brennan
By Emily Persico
SeaWorld is introducing a new show to Orlando this season, and its goal is to educate while entertaining. The show is called “Dolphin Days,” and it is positioned to replace the older show “Blue Horizons.”
Amid a slurry of whining from animal rights activists, SeaWorld has been systematically changing its approach. Beginning with SeaWorld’s orca program, this reform has finally spilled over to the dolphin show.
“Dolphin Days” is a new kind of show. It will play on each dolphin’s personality, showcasing a dolphin’s natural behaviors and environmental education. SeaWorld has been educating millions of visitors for over 50 years and rescued close to 30,000 marine animals.
This show will contrast starkly with the one it is replacing. “Blue Horizons,” which was a more flashy, spectacular-like performance, starring SeaWorld’s smiling acrobats flipping around enriched dolphin entertainers.
Assistant professor at University of South Carolina Scott Smith postulates that SeaWorld is targeting its new show at that “middle-of-the-road family that’s not environmental activists, but they’re environmentally conscious. They recycle, and they try to do the right thing, so to speak.”
According to the Orlando Sentinel, “Dolphins Days will include information about how to protect the animals in the wild, and it will have a segment in which a volunteer from the audience gets an encounter with a dolphin and a green-winged macaw.”
The park says the show is “still in development.” They have until its debut on April 1st to work out all of the ripples. We have a feeling they dolphinately will…
To learn more about “Dolphin Days,” check click here.