Dolphin Bites Girl at SeaWorld San Antonio, PETA Responds

A dolphin bit a girl at SeaWorld in San Antonio, Texas. Now the animal-rights group People for Ethical Treatment of Animals has asked the US Department of Agriculture to investigate the theme park.

A 9-year-old girl was bitten by a dolphin on February 22 while trying to pet it at SeaWorld's Dolphin cove, which allows visitors to see and touch the dolphins up close. The incident was caught on video. Peet said the dolphin latched on to the girl's hand and wrist so hard that the girl's mother wasn't able to free her hand and a SeaWorld employee had to step in. The girl's hand and wrist was swollen and covered in bite marks, ABC reports.

In a request to the USDA, Peta counsel Brittany Peet said, "This incident and exhibit clearly endangered both the dolphin and the public." She called the incident an "apparent Animal Welfare Act violation."AWA's 9CFR 2.131 (c)(1) requires "sufficient distance and/or barriers between animal and the general viewing public so as to assure the safety of animals and the public."

"It's stressful enough for far-ranging dolphins to be locked up in SeaWorld's tiny tanks, but forcing them to interact with visitors is downright dangerous," general counsel to PETA Jeff Kerr said according to ABC. "SeaWorld's 'Dolphin Cove' is another example of how the park's main priority is profit, not the welfare of the animals or the safety of its guests."

This wasn't the only incident in which a dolphin bit a child at a SeaWorld park according to PETA spokesman David Perle. "Most recently in December 2012 an 8-year-old girl sustained puncture wounds while hand-feeding a dolphin at SeaWorld Orlando. And many more trainers have been injured and even killed by animals at SeaWorld-the park has more than 100 incidents of Orca aggression in its own incomplete records," he told ABC.

"We [SeaWorld] are fully investigating this incident and we regret the guest experienced this during her visit. SeaWorld provides thousands of safe interactions between our guests and animals each day, and incidents like this are few and far between," SeaWorld San Antonio spokesman Brian Carter told ABCNews.com. After the incident, the girl and her mother looked at other attractions in the park. Carter also mentioned that the SeaWorld staff responded right away to the incident.