Huang-Ju Chen (Taiwan)

The dolphin show

Wandering behind the scenes at a Japanese aquarium, where captive dolphins perform for the paying public, Huang-Ju came across this scene. ‘I saw the workers scrubbing the tank,’ he says, ‘but then I suddenly realised there were dolphins lying in the drained pool.’ It was a stark reminder of how different life in a sterile aquarium is to a dolphin’s natura

l ocean habitat. ‘I was shocked,’ says Huang-Ju, ‘at how the staff ignored the dolphins and didn’t seem to be in any hurry to refill the pool.’ Such captivity seemed a high price for the animal to pay just for human entertainment.