Dolphin Blooper Video
Remember that video of a dolphin jumping out of its tank at an aquarium in Okinawa? In the English-speaking media, the video was presented alongside statements from animal rights activists who claimed that the animal hated being held in captivity and was trying to “escape” or “commit suicide.” The aquarium responded by stating that the dolphins were not being treated with cruelty, and that the incident was just an accident.
Last week, I saw clip on Japanese TV. It wasn’t on a news program: it was on a “Super Cute Animals” show, and it was presented as a surprising blooper (complete with goofy sound effects & laugher and applause!!):
The accident is described as if it happened because the dolphin was excited and too eager to please the audience. The celebrity faces in the corner of the screen seem pretty shocked, but once the cute-voiced narrator points out that the dolphin was soon returned to the pool without any serious injury, everybody can smile again.
Not being an animal psychic, I can’t claim that I know why the dolphin jumped out of its pool. From the looks of the video, the animal had probably been trained to stick his head over the edge of the pool as part of the dolphin show, and ended up accidentally going a bit too far. It was an unfortunate incident and some measure obviously needs to be taken to prevent it from happening again. I’m not sure why this kind of clip was included in the show; it obviously was not very cute. Aside from one clip of an alligator eating a baboon (which was presented in a non-cute manner), the entire program as pretty much cute animal clips.
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