Close-ups with Dolphins boost park's cash flow

[shockra]

Close-ups with Dolphins boost park's cash flow

Posted on Thu, Jun. 23, 2005

BY DOUGLAS HANKS III

Dolphins belong to the Delphindae family, but put them in a pool with tourists and they resemble a far more coveted species: the cash cow.

Theater of the Sea in Islamorada charges $150 for a 30-minute dolphin swim. Petting one costs $15 at the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key; volunteering there as a trainer costs $650. The Miami Seaquarium's dolphin swims generate more than $1 million a year -- as much as comes in from the park's gift shops and souvenir stands.

So it's no surprise face-to-fin encounters have emerged as a significant growth industry.

In a decade, the United States went from having four places to swim with the dolphins to more than two dozen. At least seven swim facilities have opened in the Caribbean since 2000, according to Humane Society estimates, with plans for a dozen or more in the works.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/11961753.htm

What they don't tell you is at Ric O'Barry's site (Ric is a former Flipper trainer). Here is a description of dolphin capture from that website:

"One Voice succeeded in videotaping the gruesome scene as dolphin trainers, working side by side with the Taiji fishermen, drove a pod of more than 100 bottlenose dolphins into the killing lagoon to select the ones that fit the desired criteria for public display. The trainers killed at least four dolphins in the selection process. ... Meanwhile, the dolphin trainers let the fishermen kill all the dolphins they didn't want. There were several very small babies in the pod. They still depended on their mothers‚ milk for survival and were too young to train. So the fishermen killed them, and the dolphin trainers did absolutely nothing to help them. The dolphins cried as the fishermen slashed them with hooks and knives and the lagoon filled with their blood..."

http://www.dolphinproject.org/

[Pithlet]

1. How awful

There is an evil underbelly to everything.

[KittyWampus]

2. I desperately wish i hadn't just read this and that it wasn't true.

I'd kill flipper for the chance to pet his brother?

[rzemanfl]

3. If you want to get close to a dolphin, wade fish along the beach-

eventually you will catch a fish a dolphin wants. He or she will swim up a few feet away from you, look you in the eye and wait for you to throw the fish to him/her. This happens to me fairly often along the Pinellas Beaches. It is always a sight to behold.

[KamaAina]

4. Many of Hawai'i's captive dolphins were born in captivity

Do their Floridian cousins need a little Viagra along with their herring? (Strange but true: Dolphins love herring even though they don't live far enough north to encounter it in the wild.)

Seriously, there should no longer be any need to capture new dolphins from the wild, let alone through the use of these barbaric tactics.

What an awful day for cetaceans! First the Japanese "whale-burger" (no, really), now this. :grr:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3503641&mesg_id=3503641

[shockra]

5. Yeah, disgusting.

I posted a thread on the whale meat hype a few days ago.

Reviving a Taste for Whale

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1563538

[shockra]

6. I just read a great dolphin story today in Diet for a New America...

By John Robbins -- about a dolphin named Pelorus Jack:

For many years, this dolphin guided ships through French Pass, a channel through the D'Urville Islands off New Zealand. This dangerous channel is so full of rocks, and has such extremely strong currents, that it has been the site of literally hundreds of shipwrecks. But none occurred when Pelorus Jack was at work. There is no telling how many lives he saved.

He was first seen by human beings when he appeared in front of a schooner from Boston named "Brindle," just as the ship was approaching French Pass. When the members of the crew saw the dolphin bobbing up and down in front of the ship, they wanted to kill him -- but, fortunately, the captain's wife was able to talk them out of it. To their amazement, the dolphin then proceeded to guide the ship through the narrow channel. And for years thereafter, he safely guided almost every ship that came by. So regular and reliable was the dolphin that when ships reached the entrance to French Pass they would look for him, and if he was not visible, they would wait for him to appear to guide them safely through the treacherous rocks and currents.

On one sad occasion, a drunken passenger aboard a ship named the "Penguin" took out a gun and shot at Pelorus Jack. The crew was furious, and when they saw Jack swim away with blood pouring from his body they came very close to lynching the passenger. The "Penguin" had to negotiate the channel without Pelorus Jack's help, as did the other ships that came through in the next few weeks. But one day the dolphin reappeared, apparently recovered from his wound. He had evidently forgiven the human species, because he once again proceeded to guide ship after ship through the channel. When the "Penguin" showed up again, however, the dolphin immediately disappeared.

For a number of years thereafter, Pelorus Jack continued to escort ships through French Pass -- but never the "Penguin," and the crew of that ship never saw the dolphin again. Ironically, the "Penguin" was later wrecked, and a large number of passengers and crew were drowned, as it sailed -- unguided -- through French Pass.

[livinginphotographs]

7. Republicanism in action.

If you're not going to contribute to the profit, you're not worthy to be alive.

And yet someone will defend this...

[shockra]

8. There are a lot of interesting things...

At a Miami Seaquarium parody site mentioned in the article. Including a lot of not-so-funny things, like long lists of the dolphins and sea lions that have died there way before their time. And a photograph of the stomach contents of one of the dolphins.

http://www.miamiseaprison.com/poncho.htm

In September 1982 the Seaquarium's performing dolphin named Poncho died of intestinal failure. His intestines literally exploded. Now we know why. This photo was presumably taken by Miami Seaquarium Vet. Greg Bossart. In Poncho's stomach were found:

• 2 Deflated Footballs
• 31 Coins
• 21 Stones
• 1 Trainers Whistle
• 1 Ten Penny Nail
• 2 Screws
• 1 Metal Tag
• 1 Piece of Wire
• 1 Metal Staple
• Several Other Unidentifiable Objects

"They get bored in captivity," says former dolphin trainer Russ Rector, "They pop the footballs and swallow them whole."

According to marine biologists dolphins living and dying in the wild rarely have anything other than fish in their stomachs but in captivity this is a common occurance.