This compares with the figures between 1994 and 1997 when Mexico imported 32 dolphins from Cuba and 35 altogether. During this same period, Mexico exported or re-exported another 21 individuals. Ten of these were sent to Peru but dolphins were also exported to Chile and Costa Rica. No other Latin American country presents marine mammal trade of such magnitude. Confinement in captivity of dolphins and other cetaceans can alter their behaviour so radically that captives cannot depict a true sense of their species.
Dolphins are free-living creatures used to travelling many tens of kilometres a day.
In captivity they are forced into relative idleness in an artificial environment where their behaviour is controlled and subdued by humans. They are made to interact with species and individuals they would normally avoid in the wild and whose presence may cause them stress and discomfort and who may display aggression towards them or provoke aggressive behaviour in them. Such displays of character may also occur between dolphin and human visitor or trainer. Captive displays can never truly demonstrate the complex lives of whales and dolphins nor the natural environment they are designed to inhabit. These facts are supported by the Australian Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare, who, in their report of 1985, found that cetaceans in captivity suffered stress, behavioural abnormalities, high mortality rates, decreased longevity and breeding problems.