If you’ve boycotted places like Sea World because you feel that the animals shouldn’t be held captivity, then we’ve got some good news. There is a new project happening that is creating realistic robotic dolphins which could change the way theme parks operate in the future. They are working on getting the dolphin to do acrobatics and tricks so that theme parks will no longer need to keep these animals in captivity.
Edge Innovation is creating these robot dolphins with high-quality medical-grade silicone skin. So they look super realistic. They cost anywhere from $3-$5 million dollars to make, and they are hoping that theme parks will opt to have them instead of live dolphins to showcase to guests.
They also dream of creating a “Sesame Street” type show but with these creatures that will teach children. Underwater.
Roger Holzberg, who is the creative director for Edge’s animatronic program, says:
“Those characters taught a generation how to feel about different kinds of aspects of humankind in ways that had never been imagined before. And that’s what we dream of with this project.”
This is really something that would be great to implement and would make people feel a lot less guilty about going to these theme parks. Now we’re wondering how much it would cost to make something like a realistic animatronic Orca. What would a seal cost?
They’ve already found homes for these dolphins in Chinese water parks, and are looking for more buyers. The convenience of having these robotic dolphins is that they don’t require training, just programming. It eliminates the need for animal husbandry and it’s safer for humans to interact with these robots to have interactions with.