The environment ministry has decreed the shutdown of a dolphinarium that operated without a license for almost a decade in the seaside resort town of Rimini on Italy's eastern coast, Italy's Anti-Vivisection League (LAV) reported Thursday.
"This is the first dolphinarium to be shut down by ministry decree in Italy," the animal rights group said.
"This puts a final stop to any attempt on the part of the facility to keep operating outside the law".
LAV and other animal rights groups first reported the dodgy dolphinarium to authorities in July 2013.
Prosecutors ordered its four dolphins - a mother and her three offspring - seized and transferred in September that year, deeming they were being held in substandard conditions.
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