getting to know dolphins

Wild dolphins don't wear funny hats, nor do they jump through hoops, dance on their tails, applaud themselves with their pectoral fins, or make squeaky sounds like Flipper the TV star.

The majority of dolphins held in captivity are Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). They live in temperate and tropical waters worldwide, weigh from 300 to 600 pounds and grow to more than eight feet in length. They live in groups called “pods,” made up of from several individuals to several hundred - males usually hanging out with males, females with females and their calves - and they swim up to 40 miles a day, navigating, socializing, mating, and foraging for schools of fish.

Whales (Cetacea) are divided into 13 families, which are composed of about 76 species. Four of those 13 families are baleen whales (Mysticeti), those that swim through the ocean sifting out plankton (like small crustaceans and krill) to eat. All the other families are Odontoceti, which means that they have teeth. They use these teeth not for chewing, incidentally, but for grasping. One of those families, the Delphinidae, is composed of 31 species, including the killer whale (Orca), common dolphin, porpoise, spinner dolphin and the bottlenose dolphin, the one like Flipper.

If you understand the life of captive dolphins, you also begin to see the dolphin show with all its clowning around in another way. It's not clever anymore. It's abusive. When we understand that the dolphins are doing this because it's their only way of staying alive, we see it clearly for what it is: dominance. We're making dolphins do silly things, they would never do in nature, because we're amused by dominating helpless members of another species.

The worst part is that it teaches children that it's okay to mock and disrespect one of nature's most fabulous of beings. The law permits this only because it's supposed to be educational. What a joke! But the joke is on us. These pathetic dolphins in captivity, wearing funny hats and leaping through hoops, are in no way like dolphins are in the wild. The saddest part is that we've allowed the entertainment industry not only to twist a beautiful species into a parody of itself but also allowed them to profit from it.

What happens to dolphins when the show is over and everybody is gone? Most of the dolphins do nothing at all. They languish in their tank or cage and wait for the next show, the next feeding.