Giving a dolphin a hand
Dolphins are sexually active animals and male dolphins such as bottle nose dolphins living in the wild are known to masturbate regularly to climax. One reason might be to flush out sperm that has lost its motility. Same holds for bottle nose dolphins held in captivity which often have limited space or partners to play or copulate with. In some cases dolphin trainers help dolphins to ejaculate, to collect sperm for artificial insemination. Dolphins have already learned to turn on their back and let the trainer do the 'hand job'. It’s not necessarily something to get upset about or to think that these animals are maltreated
But the public often reacts shocked when they read or see in the media that a human person was involved in helping the animal to lose it sperm. Like in a Dutch newspaper today. And then easily associate it with ‘animal sex’, a perverted form of human/animal interactions that can be found on Internet.
Animal liberators are always on the front row in their protests. Some of it is justified, and its true that some dolphinaria do not have sufficient space to hold marine mammals as dolphins or Orcas. The other side of the coin is that many of them would not survive when set back in the ocean again.