Footage has surfaced on social media showing the moment a dolphin attacked its trainer during a show at the Miami Seaquarium.

As reported by the New York Post, a marine trainer had to be taken to hospital after a dolphin by the name of Sundance "broke away from routine" during a live show and started ramming the worker.

Footage of the incident was captured by audience member and photographer Shannon Carpenter.

Carpenter later said, per the New York Post: "One trainer that was furthest away from the video either kept getting hit by the dolphin or pulled down by the dolphin."

He added: "The kids were cheering and thinking this was neat... You could tell the adults knew something was wrong."

CBS News reports that the scary incident occurred last Saturday during the park's Flipper Dolphin Show. Following Seaquarium's investigation into the show, officials learned that the trainer accidentally scratched Sundance with her hand, causing the dolphin to start ramming her.

After the trainer was able to make it out of the water, she was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, but did not suffer any serious injuries.

It happened Saturday in front of a crowd during a performance of the Flipper Dolphin Show. A cell phone video shows the trainer struggling to stay afloat as the dolphin, Sundance, dragged her underwater and then pushed her forward.

Per Local10 News Miami Seaquarium released the following statement regarding the incident: "A dolphin and trainer accidentally collided in the water on Saturday while performing a routine behavior as part of the Flipper Show.

"This was an uncomfortable interaction for both of them and the dolphin reacted by breaking away from the routine and striking the trainer.

"As a precaution, Miami-Dade County safety authorities were contacted. Our family extends to include the animals in our care, our team members and our guests. While there is no apparent serious injury, a careful watch and follow-up evaluations will ensure the best care for all."

However, PETA has slammed the park following the distressing occurrence. In a statement, the animal welfare group said that "time is up at Miami Seaquarium", and accused the park of housing "long-suffering dolphins" and employing workers who are "at risk".

"PETA urges this abusement park to end its exploitation of dolphins by getting them into sanctuaries as quickly as possible, where they’d never be used in tawdry shows again and no-one else will get hurt," PETA officials added.

Insider reports that this incident comes after Miami Seaquarium was cited for numerous animal welfare violations in a 17-page report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in June, 2021.

Featured image credit: Paul Hennessy / Alamy

A dolphinarium in the city of Varna on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast has attracted criticism over the reported death of a baby dolphin.

Per BTV Novinite, an audience member alleges that the incident occurred during a live performance at the aquatic zoo earlier this month.

"There was a disturbance, the dolphins stopped playing and performing tricks," recalls spectator, Bisser Lyubenov. He claimed that the show was then cut short, and that they were asked to leave.

Two pink dolphins were spotted in a Louisiana river: 

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According to another witness, the body of the dolphin could be seen by visitors in the park's cafe.

However, the dolphinarium denies that the animal died during the live show, and in front of children.

Tsvetan Stanev, a biologist who is employed at the aquatic zoo, says that the calf and its mother had been separated from the other dolphins since its birth.

According to the BBC, he alleged;

"You can’t have a mother leaving its child in order to take part in the show. This can happen about six months after the birth. A baby dolphin taking part in performances nine days after it was born – this has never happened in this dolphinarium."

However, concerns for the welfare of the animals at the facility have not been put to rest by this explanation. Yavor Gechev, from the animal protection organisation Four Paws, has highlighted that six animals - five dolphins and one seal - have perished at the park in the last five years. He claims the mortality rate is much higher than in other marine parks.

A man recently spotted a '30-foot' shark swimming near his boat:

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"This means categorically that conditions don’t meet even the minimal standards for keeping such animals," he told the publication. "The animals are struggling there, they are not surviving."

Since news of the incident broke, outraged animal lovers have taken to social media to launch a petition calling for the closure of the park.

"I saw the show once and I'm still horrified about the way the dolphins get treated! It's clear that a big profit is made at the expense of the animals who are forced to perform too often," wrote one Facebook user.

SeaWorld has responded to footage of orcas allegedly attacking each other, the Daily Star has reported.

A visitor to the theme park in San Diego captured the video, which appeared to show two killer whales engaging in an underwater scuffle.

In the clip, two orcas can be seen thrashing about in the water, before one appears to beach itself on the tank's ledge. In the background, a child is heard saying: "How is the orca still alive?"

The visitor, who recorded the footage told PETA:"We all immediately saw blood soaking the water which triggered my 9-year-old daughter to start crying [...] Every couple seconds two more orcas would jump out of the water to continuing [sic] attacking the hurt orca."

The footage led to PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman calling for the USDA to investigate SeaWorld "for holding animals in conditions so stressful they would lead to horrific attacks".

Reiman also called for "families to stay away from any park that imprisons orcas or other animals".

Now, a spokesperson for the theme park has refuted the footage and provided an explanation for the animals' behavior.

Speaking to the Daily Star, the spokesperson said: "The video released by PETA is misleading and mischaracterized. In fact, it shows common orca behaviors exhibited by both wild populations and those in human care as part of natural social interactions."

"During the interaction, one of the orcas sustained some minor and superficial abrasions that pose no serious health risk. Numerous scientific papers have been published about these behaviors among wild orcas," the spokesperson concluded.

However, PETA was far from convinced. In a formal complaint to the US Department of Agriculture against SeaWorld, PETA alleged that one of the animals had been seriously injured during the attack, despite SeaWorld's claims that the wounds were superficial.

"The wound appears to extend past the epidermis into the adipose or muscular tissues and will require medical treatment, including antibiotics and topical wound care and/or bandaging, in order to prevent infection and aid in proper healing," the organization stated in their complaint.

Contradicting SeaWorld's statement to the Daily Star, PETA continued: "The orca can be seen in the video beaching themselves which is a highly unnatural behavior and appears to be the only way for the distressed orca to get away from their aggressors."

The disturbing incident occurred just one day after another orca died after being in captivity at SeaWorld for 21 years.

The killer whale, named Nakai, was reportedly suffering from an infection, and despite "aggressive therapeutic and diagnostic efforts", he was unable to be saved.

Per KPBS, the park said in a statement: "His contributions to helping improve the health and survival of whales in the wild cannot be underestimated and will never be forgotten."

Featured image credit: Jan Carroll / Alamy

If there's one subject that's almost certain to get internet users riled up, it's animal cruelty. All you need to do to incur the self-righteous wrath of countless millions of commenters is to make the mistake of hurting or humiliating some poor defenceless creature, and then sit back and wait for the social media collective to figuratively kick your back doors in. Not only that, but the more committed commenters are to the issue of animal rights, the more vocal they'll inevitably be in their scathing condemnation.

If you want an example of a group whose animal rights advocacy can verge on the fanatical side, then look no further than Peta. Yes, despite their laudable goals and moral intentions, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have managed to incur a reputation for irresponsible and provocative publicity stunts, which some critics have decried as doing more harm than good overall.

The latest hot-button topic to ruffle their feathers is a viral video, which shows a beluga whale being treated to an underwater makeover. It all sounds like harmless good fun, but Peta say that the footage is no laughing matter.

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The offending video in question apparently comes from the Sun Asia Ocean World aquarium in Dalian, in the Liaoning Province of China. The short clip shows staff at the aquarium diving into the whale's take, and applying bright red lipstick to the marine mammal's mouth.

The video of the cosmetics session was then promptly uploaded to Dou Yin (抖音), a popular Chinese video app, on June 9, and was criticised for its perceived animal cruelty. That was when the uproar from Peta Asia began in earnest. The original video has since been taken down by its uploader as a result of the subsequent backlash.

Press officer Keith Guo, a spokesperson for Peta Asia, stated that the aquarium has angered animal rights activists in the past, since it keeps many of its animals, such as belugas and dolphins, in tanks which the organisation has deemed too shallow to promote their health and well-being. Guo stated angrily that: "Those sea mammals who have social needs and vast water were so anxious and living in pain."

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Sun Asia Ocean World has since apologised to the public for the viral video. In a statement, the aquarium appeared to be remorseful for the furore that the clip had caused, stating: "Hereby, we express our sincere apology to all the friends who like Sun Asia Ocean World".

The aquarium also claims that the keeper in the video who can be seen applying the lipstick has since left the company last month, and that it was was filmed in 2017 and uploaded to Dou Yin by someone else - not the trainer in question.

The beluga whale (or the white whale) are a species native to the Arctic Ocean. The easygoing, comparatively friendly nature of the species, as well as their intelligence, has made them popular at various aquariums around the world. However, the beluga is under threat, and have since been added to the red list of endangered species on International Union for Conservation of Nature as of 2008.

What would your reaction be if a huge shark suddenly began swimming in your vicinity during a dip in the ocean? You probably wouldn't be particularly calm, would you?

Which is why the reactions of dozens of beachgoers in Florida have baffled so many people.

A video recorded recently at Navarre Beach in Florida has caught the moment a sizeable-looking shark swims perilously close to a crowd of people enjoying some time in the ocean.

Now, ordinarily, the reaction to a fish big enough to bite one of your limbs off getting up close and personal with a bunch of human beings would probably be one of sheer panic. You'd usually have beachgoers desperately dashing out of the water, trying to save their body parts from becoming a shark's lunch.

Instead, the Navarre Beach faithful, en masse, calmly exited the waters, almost without a care in the world.

From the footage, no one has been able to confirm what species of shark is pictured in the video. However, Florida's waters are home to both Tiger Sharks and Bull Sharks, two species that have been responsible for multiple fatalities in the past.

Sharks normally associate splashing with distressed animals, which would provide them with a relatively easy dinner or maybe a light swimming snack. So the people in the video calmly heading back to the sand are acting exactly as they should. The lack of frantic behavior also doesn't allow the shark itself to become stressed and thus start behaving erratically.

However, when the video hit social media, some commenters were less than impressed with what they saw.

One Facebook user replied, "What happened to the advance warning from the lifeguards? Lifeguards whistling? That's a huge shark. It makes you wanna just stay in a pool."

Beach Safety Director Austin Turnbull reassured everyone that all protocols had been adhered to and that sharks are incredibly common in Florida waters, so the entire situation wasn't really anything to worry about.

"There’s sharks in the Gulf, everywhere. We see sharks almost every day and there’s nothing to be alarmed of for 99.9% of the time," he said, per The New York Post.

We're still very alarmed for that 0.1% of the time, though.

Featured image credit: Education Images / Getty