OCEAN THEME PARKS: China’s Growing Captive Cetacean Industry(2019–2024)
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The 2015 CCA report identified 39 operational facilities and 14 facilities under construction. By 2019, 80 facilities were open and 27 were under construction. The rapid pace of development has since slowed down. By 2024, 101 facilities were open and 11 were under construction, adding only five more facilities in the past four years, versus 54 new facilities in the four years before that.
The most highly anticipated opening happened in September 2023, when the Chimelong Spaceship facility at Zhuhai Chimelong Ocean Kingdom finally came online. Chimelong Spaceship became only the second facility in China to exhibit orcas, following the premiere of the Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park orca show in 2018. It is our understanding that Wuxi Changqiao Orca Ocean World is in the process of training orcas for public performances,9 and reports suggest Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park and Zhengzhou Haichang Ocean Park are building orca facilities,10 demonstrating a continued expansion of the orca display programme in China.