Shocking video has emerged of the moment an aquarium dolphin leapt out of its tank in a seemingly desperate attempt to escape captivity.
The dolphin, from the Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa, Japan, made the dive onto the floor outside its tank during a performance, the Daily Mail reports.
PHOTOS: Dolphin's leap for freedom
Called Kuru, the dolphin is a species known as a false killer whale, which can grow to up to 6m in length.
A US tourist captured the moment on camera and the footage shows aquarium staff rushing to wrap Kuru in a mat before lifting it back into the water with a crane.
Other dolphins in the tank gather around the side where Kuru leapt out.
Dolphin activist Ric O'Barry, who was sent the footage, told the Daily Mail the case highlighted how animals suffered in captivity.
"The habitat of that false killer whale is so unnatural it leapt out in desperation."
"It wanted to end it. Why does a person jump out of a building."
Keeping dolphins in concrete tanks was cruel because it deprived them of their sensory skills and bombarded them with strange sounds, he said.
But the aquarium's dolphin manager Hideshu Teruya denied Kuru was trying to escape.
"It was playing around and jumped out by accident from the momentum," he told the newspaper.
The dolphin had suffered some minor scratches and bruises but was otherwise unharmed by the incident, he said.
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