A serious boycott of Sea World and Marine Land is needed after watching this dolphin come to humans for help getting untangled from a fishing line.
There is compelling evidence that cetaceans are self-aware. Studies have shown that dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror and use that image to investigate their body. This self-awareness doesn’t appear in humans until the age of 2. It can be argued that bottle nose dolphins have a level of understanding comparable to that of a two-year-old child, although linguistic skills of cetaceans hint at intelligence far more developed. Locking two or three young children in a small room 24 hours a day would be considered child abuse; yet confining dolphins in an equivilant space for their lifetime is standard practice.
(Source: The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity, 2009 The Humane Society of the US and the World Society for the Protection of Animals)