Born Free Foundation - Keep Wildlife in the Wild

The objective of the Back to the Blue project is to undertake a programme of work, operating to internationally recognised standards of animal welfare and management, aimed at releasing two captive dolphins, Tom and Misha, back to the wild.

During spring and summer 2010, Born Free Foundation’s Travellers’ Animal Alert! campaign received complaints from concerned tourists regarding two bottlenose dolphins held in a swimming pool style structure in Hisaronu, south east Turkey.  At the same time, Turkey-based campaign group, the Dolphin Angels, were mounting an effective local campaign against the facility and a Facebook campaign was attracting growing support.  A team from Born Free visited the site to investigate.  The findings included a hastily constructed, extremely small and poorly filtered pool, in which two large dolphins swam in their own waste.

In September 2010, after the owner had fled and considerable negotiations with the facilities’ creditors had taken place, an agreement was reached to transfer ownership of the dolphins to Born Free.  Born Free, in collaboration with Turkish organisation, Underwater Research Society (SAD) and Dolphin Angels then undertook the emergency rescue of Tom and Misha and relocated them to a temporary sea pen in southern Turkey.  The dolphins were subsequently moved to a specially designed large, deep rehabilitation sea pen constructed by Born Free.  It is here that Tom and Misha are now undergoing rehabilitation with the aim of successfully being released back to the wild.