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Discovery Cove doesn’t sound like such a fun place when what you’re discovering is that animals kept in captivity and forced to perform stupid stunts in a pool the size, to them, of a sink tend to die young.

This past weekend, a dolphin named Sharky collided with another dolphin during a live “performance” and died shortly afterwards. The story has been doing the rounds of the international news media, which invariably uses terms like “freak accident” and “random,” interspersed with the occasional quote about the incident being “unfortunate”. Which is all very nice, I guess, but they’re missing a key point about this story: Dolphins don’t do well in captivity because they don’t belong there, and one tragedy or another is inevitable when these animals are required to perform tricks that are as unnatural to them as they are inhumane.

Sharky, like the vast majority of dolphins held captive in marine mammal parks, died a few decades short of his natural life expectancy. The only difference between his story and that of his counterparts around the country is that his story actually got reported on.

More info on marine mammal parks here.

Hayden Panettiere (the star of NBC’s Heroes), was so outraged about the hideous dolphin cull taking place in Japan right now that she went out herself to try and put a stop to it. Along with five of her friends, Hayden paddled out on a surfboard in an attempt to stop a pod of dolphins from reaching a cove where the Japanese fishermen were waiting to slaughter them, but was violently deterred by the men on the fishing boats, who used hooks and the boats’ propellers to stop her from reaching the animals. Here’s what she said about the situation:

"Some of us were hit by the boathook. But in the end all we really worried about was the dolphins. It was so incredibly sad. We were so close to them and they were sky hopping, jumping out of the water to see us. One little baby dolphin stuck his head out and kinda looked at me and the thought that it's no longer with us is really hard to take."

PETA is sending her a Compassionate Citizen award for her incredible bravery and her dedication to helping animals in need. I hate to have to use the obvious pun here, but you’re a hero, Hayden. Keep up the great work.

There’s more on this story, as well as footage of the horrific dolphin slaughter, on Sky News.