Understanding #Dolphins

UNDERSTANDING DOLPHINS

The life experience one gains from years of being around and engaging the magnificent Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin lasts a lifetime. The main character in my book, Five Miles Deep, is Marina Victoria, the queen of a people that arrived on earth before the dawn of man. Marina uses the intelligence of the Bottlenosed Dolphins in her quest to rescue her people.

In studies made by the U.S. Navy, dolphins were trained to find and recognize underwater mines and explosive devices so naval divers could disarm enemy explosives and save lives of sailors and their ships from certain destruction. Dolphins have, with or without training, saved many lives of sailors, and swimmers from deadly shark attacks.

In the past, my partners in the attractions that we owned in Cape Coral, Florida and in Townsend, Tennessee had dolphin and sea lion shows, in conjunction with our water ski shows and the Waltzing Waters shows. I was invited along to help capture and train dolphins that we used in the shows. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 mandated the method and means of treating the animals we captured, and they were safe and unharmed at all times. That was not always the case with the humans involved with the capture, however.

One such case was a fully uniformed Florida Marine Patrol officer who was assigned to accompany us on a dolphin catch in the waters of Pine Island Sound of the Coast of Useppa Island in Lee County, Florida. The officer stayed out of the way when we brought a young male dolphin along side the boat, secured him on the lifting sling to bring him on board. We had the animal out of the water when the officer decided he wanted to help. He wrapped his arms around the dolphin about a foot ahead of his tail flukes.

Jack Scarpuzzi, our dolphin trainer hollered at the officer, “Don’t grab him there...” when the dolphin flipped the two-hundred pound officer about 10 yards into the water and the weight of his gear and guns began pulling him down. We had to drop the dolphin and set him free in order to rescue the drowning officer.

Later in the day, we captured two more dolphins and brought them back for training in the shows. Dolphins love being fed fresh fish and reward us with the way they play. We don’t really train them to jump, flip or retrieve items. They do that naturally. We just teach them to read clocks so they know when it is show time. They perform for the attention and affection we share. Mealtime is for eating, not as a reward for performing. Thanks to the trainers at Sea World, marine mammal behavior and biology has provided us with a wealth of knowledge about the Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins. Dolphins

are an awesome animal to share the planet with. Their intelligence has been measured at the level of a middle-schooler.