Our message to Kobe, Japan's sister city: Seattle

5/9/25

Dear President Erickson,

Seattle, Washington and Kobe, Japan have been Sister Cities since 1957, organizing dozens of events and forming lasting friendships even from across the ocean. 

Seattle is well-known for its iconic majestic wild orca whales that swim the nearby shores, adorning billboards and attracting tourists for profitable boat excursions. Sadly, Seattle's adoration of orcas is a stark contrast to the treatment of these highly intelligent, social, wide-ranging marine mammals recently confined for entertainment purposes at Kobe Suma Sea World. 

Kobe Suma Sea World, which consists of a hotel and theme park, opened to the public less than one year ago and, based on online reviews, has shocked people worldwide with their heinous treatment of cetaceans.

As a veterinarian and avid whale watcher who visits Seattle annually for that exact purpose, I am highly concerned about the welfare of the two orcas (Stella and Ran II) and 17 bottlenose dolphins (Gal, Mel, Callis, Orino, Koo, Vina, Mamie, Aqua, Love, Gina, Light, Pop, Kate, Leo, Sora, Reed, and Hal) held captive at Kobe Suma Sea World and Hotel. 

The hotel houses two large adult dolphins in a very shallow concrete pool smaller than most hotel swimming pools and only about 3-4x wider than the dolphin's bodies are long. In fact, this is perhaps one of the smallest dolphin tanks currently anywhere in the world. In spite of this, these two dolphins are expected to pose for photos with paying hotel guests multiple times daily. 

The animals in the theme park adjacent are not much better off. They are tragically kept in tiny, barren, antiquated cement pools with little enrichment and no reliable source of shade from the hot sunlight. The dolphins are immensely overcrowded and without adequate space. Ran the orca has been filmed purposefully stranding herself on a trainer platform for 20-50 minutes at a time - a sign of stress and maladaptation. 

It is worrisome that these pools were constructed in 2024, yet give the impression they were built in 1950, lacking almost anything natural to a marine mammal. The theme park's motto is "All lives, on a vast scale," but they must be talking about the ocean, which is mere meters away, because the "habitats" there are certainly not vast! This can hardly be called a place of conservation or education when they are running their facility like a circus from a century ago. 

While Kobe is a beautiful, vibrant city, Kobe Suma Sea World tarnishes that image. 

We hope - given the close relationship between Seattle and Kobe - that you could encourage a move of these 19 magnificent beings to somewhere with more humane housing, ideally seaside sanctuaries or, at minimum, a facility equipped with larger, deeper enclosures, enhanced with enrichment such as rocks/kept, and protection from the elements, such as shade awns. 

Kobe Suma SeaWorld is a blemish on Japan and it should concern Seattleites that their own beloved mascot - the orca - is kept in poor conditions and forced to perform tricks in an embarrassingly tiny pool, right there in their Sister City. 

Sincerely,

Niki Gianni, DVM, CWI Board Member

Carrie LeBlanc