Dolphin Therapy and Autism Ranking:

Risks and Safety

Hazards

According to Marino and Lilienfeld (2007), dolphin therapy poses many potential hazards to the human participants including:

• Aggressive behaviour by dolphins, which can lead to injury
• Transmission of diseases from dolphins.

If the therapy takes place in the open sea there may be additional hazards including adverse sea conditions, boat traffic and harmful sea creatures.

Dolphin therapy also poses many potential hazards to the dolphins including:

• Stress in captive dolphins
• Transmission of diseases from humans
• Pressure on wild dolphin populations.

“There is abundant evidence for injuries sustained by participants in DAT programs. Moreover, interactions between dolphins and humans carry a significant risk of infections and parasitism for both humans and dolphins.” 

Contraindications

There are no known contraindications (something which makes a particular treatment or procedure potentially inadvisable) for dolphin therapy other than the hazards listed above.

Updated

17 Jun 2022

Last Review

01 Nov 2017

Next Review

01 Mar 2024