The History of Defunct Marine Mammal Parks

The Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport was destroyed during hurricane Katrina. The park was home to 14 dolphins, 26 sealions, 1 seal and 25 exotic birds. This is what remained of the park after the hurricane:

Six of the dolphins were moved to a hotel swimming pools in the days running up to the hurricane. Three went to the Gulfport's Best Western pool and the other three went to the Holiday Inn's hotel pool, which were both situated on higher ground.

These dolphins survived the storm and were transported to the Gulfarium at Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Due to time restrictions, no more dolphins could be moved to safer pools. As many as possible of the sealions were moved to a trainer's home where they rode out the storm sitting in crates inside a large truck on the driveway.

The remaining 8 dolphins were rescued 2 weeks later from the sea after being swept out of their tank by a huge wave created by Katrina.  They had been moved to the 30ft high tank that had withstood the forces of Hurricane Camille in 1969 and every other storm, but this time round it was the 40ft wave, not the winds that proved too powerful. (note the tank is still intact in the photograph above.) The exotic birds were transported in a truck to the Gulf Breeze Zoo in Florida. 19 (or 15, it differs with sources) sealions and the 1 seal were also at the Oceanarium when the hurricane struck. At least 5 sealions died from storm-related deaths and the seal was never found. Sealions were found in all sorts of places. One woman found one under her SUV and coaxed it into her child's paddling pool. She fed it frozen fish from her freezer until a rescue could be performed. Sealions were also found in people's front yards on on their porches. "One warehouse that's still intact is letting us keep sea lions there until we can get them to Sea World," reported one of the marine mammal trainers.

Two of the sealions were found severely injured and had to be humanely euthanized one other sealion was found dead. (part of the 5 that did not survive.) The surviving sealions were tranferred to Seaworld Orlando temporarily before being rehomed to facilities in places such as the Bahamas. (due to having been bred in captivity, a decision was made to re-capture all of the surviving animals because of their inability to find food in the wild.)

Dr Moby Solangi (owner and director of the Marine Life Oceanrium) announced: "These are domesticated animals and some are captive-borns, and they don't have the hunting skills,"

 Solangi estimated that his missing mammals could only survive about a week to 10 days out of captivity because they would have trouble finding food. He also said that he wouldn't rest until he found them.

Some of the Dolphins being rescued:

The dolphins were then moved into rented pools at the Seabee Naval Base in Gulfport,  where they were quarantined before moving to new homes:

One of the surviving sealions at a park in the Bahamas:

Dr Solangi stated that the a complete re-built of the oceanarium would take between 18 and 24 months, but nothing seems to plans have been made to rebuilt the attraction as of yet.

The oceanarium before the storm:

For more information on the rescue and rehabilitation of these animals:

http://www.imms.org/downloads/rescues/Hurricane_Katrina_Dolphin_and_Sea_Lion_Rescues.pdf