On 12/16/20 I had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Sergio Antonio García Torres, the General Director of Animal Rights of the Spanish Government. He listened carefully to the reasons I have behind my campaign to ban dolphinariums in Spain, and I want to share them with you so that you know that I continue and will continue to fight so that this terrible situation of inequality and animal abuse ends in our country.  They were the following:

1. Spain has three times more dolphinariums than any country in Europe, with more than a third of the dolphinariums in Europe, and with more than 55% of all captive dolphins in Europe. 
 
2. Spain is the second world tourism destination, and it is also working very hard to be sustainable and ecological, and with its position it wants to be a leader in its fields. What better way to show our leadership by showing that the Spanish Government will not tolerate having cetaceans in captivity. 
 
3. Spain should create this law because animals do not deserve to have their freedom restricted for our fun. No matter how big the pool or tank is, it doesn’t matter how many dolphins they are with, they have no freedom, they are still in a cup compared to their natural habitat. We cannot take them out of their home, separate them from their mothers and their family, and then put them in pools with dolphins that either are not of the same species, or are not of the same family or that have different ways of communicating and do not understand each other. Then they fight and one of them can end up dying or hurting themselves a lot. Dolphin brains are not made to go through the middle of a hoop, or jump, do a somersault in the air and touch a ball hanging from the ceiling, which they would never do in the wild. Their brain is much more complex than ours, although we think that because we train them, we are superior. Their brain can do things that ours cannot, such as echolocation.
 
4. IT IS IMPORTANT TO CREATE THIS LAW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE: time passes, and all this terrifying trade around dolphins and cetaceans continues. In addition to also following the unfortunate life in aquariums, dolphinariums and zoos, of about 100 dolphins only in our country. 

5. The longer we let this go, the more dolphins will be captured and separated from their family. All illegal traffic will be followed under the knowledge of the legal framework so as not to stop the breeding and commercialization of dolphins. 

6. I understand that it is not easy and that it moves a lot of money, but now we are in the 21st century. Just as we educate people to use renewable energy, we can also educate that keeping animals in captivity is neither right nor humane, and that the companies that market it have to evolve their business to something that does not harm living beings that in definitively we are all. 

7. Educational or Scientific: Having a cetacean in a tank is not educational at all, it is BAD EDUCATION. You have to study them in freedom, which is obviously not easy, but it is how nature has conceived it. And what is not fair, neither ethical nor correct, is that some are born without being able to see what their home, their habitat should really be, or that others have been captured from their habitat and separated from their family.

The great oceanographer and champion of marine animal rights, Jacques Cousteau said it best: "To claim that studying dolphins in captivity has educational benefits would be like studying humanity by looking only at isolated prisoners."

 Sergio G. Torres, (General Director of Animal Rights in the Spanish Government), was very receptive and promised to work at first, to end the dolphin shows in Spain. Something that he himself recognized the need to finish. I feel that he agreed with the concepts I passed on to him, and I will continue to fight and communicate with him to advance my campaign goal. 

Thank you very much for your support, and I invite you to share my request. 

Merry Christmas to all of us who can enjoy freedom.