Bored dolphins playing sharks volleyball?

When dolphins tire of manmade toys, they have no problem with using baby sharks as a volleyball, officials at a Florida research center said.

The activity triggers a scramble for staff to rescue the sharks at the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, 58 miles north of Key West, Media Relations Coordinator Mary Stella told UPI on a recent visit.

The center has 90,000 square feet of lagoons on the Gulf of Mexico. Staff developed a plastic mesh that is used as fencing to keep the center's 19 resident dolphins in and other larger species such as predator sharks out, Stella said. She said occasionally, baby nurse sharks find their way into the lagoons and staff have to rescue them from the dolphins.

The center was home to the five dolphins that shared the lead role in the 1963 hit film "Flipper," and now has several third-generation offspring of the stars. It's also home to Theresa, who is more than 50 years old, a U.S. Navy "employee" until 1968 with a classified background, Stella said. She said the center's staff also assists in manatee rescues but has no permanent facility for them.

The center offers an assortment of "dolphin experiences" for visitors, including 20-minute, waist-deep, in-water visits in which a trainer works the mammals through routines such as a flipper-shakes, flipper-splashing and pairs towing visitors who hold onto dorsal fins.

There are also programs offering daylong courses in training and managing dolphins, marine research and special needs programs for the disabled.

During a recent visit, spectators watching small groups of visitors enter the lagoon area remarked to UPI that "as soon as people see dolphins, they smile." Indeed, the animals appeared healthy and happy and could be seen frolicking on their own without a trainer's instructions. Visitors who touched the dolphins described the feeling as being like "wet hot dogs" or "wet suede."

However, such facilities have their enemies, the biggest being the Humane Society of the United States.

In 1996, Naomi Rose, HSUS marine mammal scientist in Washington told UPI the society "strongly disapproves" of any swim with dolphin programs.

"I'm not denying there's probably therapeutic value to interacting with these animals but there's also therapeutic value in interaction with puppies, kittens, goats and sheep," Rose said.

The society's Web site takes a more aggressive stance against marine facilities.

"Experience has proven that public display does not effectively educate the public and that profit is the main motive for conducting traumatic and stressful captures," the site says.

The DRC's Stella acknowledged the criticism and said there remain some questionable facilities in the United States and elsewhere. She pointed out, however, the center is not-for-profit and quoted the mission statement: "The health and well-being of DRC's dolphins hold absolute precedence over all other interests."

She denied claims that dolphins must perform to be fed, saying the center goes through some 300 pounds of fresh fish each day, with vitamins and antibiotics added when needed.

"We ask dolphins to participate -- we don't force," she said. "The truth of the matter is, you cannot make a dolphin do anything it doesn't choose to do."

Stella said the "Flipper" movie was integral in her personal career choice. The New Jersey native said after seeing the movie as a child, her parents brought her to the center in the 1960s and her passion for dolphins began. She said the 70 largely part-time staff and 20 volunteers often spend far more hours at the site than scheduled, and as with the visitors, UPI observed near-permanent smiles on workers' faces.

Two dolphin species gain state recognition

And the winner of the battle between the North Atlantic right whale and the bottlenose dolphin is ... Alice Drive Elementary School.

It was the efforts of Alice Drive students that ultimately led to the passage of legislation recognizing three official state animals — the bottlenose dolphin as the state marine mammal, the Northern right whale as the state migratory marine mammal and the wood duck, also known as the summer duck, as the state duck.

“It was because of our efforts that two mammals got recognized,” said Lynn Eldridge, the art teacher at Alice Drive who started the schoolwide project on the Northern right whale. “If it wasn’t for us, bottlenose dolphins wouldn’t have gotten recognized. Now, they both are.”

All they were originally after was recognizing one, the Northern right whale, which has been known to give birth to calves off the South Carolina coast as it migrates from its summer home of New England to its winter home of Florida.

“I was completely impressed with what all the young folks at Alice Drive had done and all the effort put into it by the principal, Mrs. (Lynn) Eldridge and others,” said Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, who sponsored the original bill that would have recognized the Northern right whale as the state marine mammal and who helped forge the compromise in the last couple of days of the legislative session.

“We all know the reason that teachers do that is to give students something to identify with and, hopefully, get them involved in the learning process,” he continued. “She certainly did a great job with that.”

The students found out about the compromise Wednesday morning. Principal Debbie Thomas made sure to include in the daily announcements that the bill became law without Gov. Mark Sanford’s signature.

For the most part, they were happy with the outcome. But some students said the bottlenose dolphin doesn’t deserve the recognition because it is not endangered, and it pales in size and majesty to the Northern right whale.

“I was disappointed we had to split with the bottlenose dolphin because we started the whole thing with the right whale,” said David Cooper, 10, a fourth-grader. “We put a whole lot of work into it, and (the bottlenose dolphin supporters) came in halfway through it.”

It all started as a desire on the part of art teacher Lynn Eldridge to decorate a large wall in the cafeteria. It evolved into a schoolwide project in which students of all grade levels learned about the Northern right whale and other South Carolina symbols. Leventis agreed to sponsor the legislation after visiting the school in December and being impressed with the students’ work.

They came up not only with murals of whales, and facts about them, on school walls, but also a song and dance.

Leventis introduced the bill Jan. 14. But two weeks later, Sen. George E. “Chip” Campsen III, R-Charleston, introduced a rival bill to name the bottlenose dolphin as the state marine mammal. Both measures ended up languishing in committee throughout the legislative session.

Then, in the final week, Leventis noticed a bill that would name the wood duck the official state duck. He approached Campsen about adding amendments to that measure that would recognize both mammals. After some negotiation, they came to the compromise, and the amendments were included on the bill that was approved by both the House and Senate on May 21, the last day of the session.

Campsen said Wednesday he was satisfied with the compromise, but he wanted to make clear his motives. Leventis had theorized that the South Carolina Ports Authority was behind the bottlenose dolphin drive because in its view, naming the Northern right whale as the state’s official marine mammal would hurt business. The authority has opposed federal regulations passed in December requiring ships not to approach a Northern right whale any closer than 500 feet except in limited circumstances.

“Everyone who thinks I’m a stooge of the Ports Authority ought to look at my opposition to rail access on the northern end of the port,” Campsen said. “This purely flows from my lifetime of passionate experience in our marine ecosystem. I hunt in it, surf in it, have spent my whole life in it. I just felt like we should have something more endemic to the area as the state marine mammal. ... And the whale really is a migratory mammal.”

In the end, the students said they learned a lot about the legislative process and the need to be persistent.

“If you want something, you’ve got to keep going,” said fifth-grader Christian Hithe, 11.

Contact Staff Writer Jason Wermers at jwermers@theitem.com or (803) 774-1295.

Stop Risso's dolphins' slaughter!

In March 09 it was reported that the people of the Feroe Island in Denmark were caught slaughtering many Risso's Dolphins in celebration of their toughness. Risso's Dolphins are of friendly nature, and trust only humans, therefore when they get close to shore, they are caught in nets and slughtered. Tell Anders Fogh Rasmussen to say no to this, and stop these rapid and heartless killings at once.

Experts learn a lot from rare dolphin specie

A preliminary study on Australia’s mysterious snubfin dolphin has given researchers new insight into the mammal’s habits and behaviour, including that it uses an extraordinary spitting technique to catch prey.

The research, funded by ING DIRECT, has given an overview of the life and habits of this very rare marine mammal, affectionately named ‘snubby’ by researchers, which lives in tight-knit social groups along the northern coastlines of Australia.

The small dolphins hunt in groups and use a spitting technique to catch their prey - chasing fish to the surface of the water, and rounding them up by shooting jets of water from their mouths, said WWF-Australia’s Marine and Coasts Manager Lydia Gibson.

“This is incredibly unusual behaviour, first seen in Australia off the Kimberley Coast, has only been noted before in Irrawaddy dolphins, which are closely related to this species,” Gibson said. “It also confirms the snubfin dolphin is a fascinating animal, one which we know so little about.”

Gibson said the WWF/ING DIRECT research has been collating existing information from many sightings over the years while also gathering new valuable data about snubfin habitats across northern Australia.

The ten key findings from the research so far show that:

• Threats to mangrove systems from rising sea levels predicted with climate change and from human impacts such as dam construction, dredging and other destructive activities are the greatest threat to the snubfin. Where mangrove systems are destroyed or damaged, the snubfins will lose their food and their habitat/home.

• Snubfins are very susceptible to chemical pollution, viruses and bacteria because they live close to shore and have a relatively small range. A parasite found in cat faeces (Toxoplasma gondii) is of particular concern, as it was found - via contaminated run-off - to be the cause of death of three Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins recovered around Townsville in the period 2000-2001.

• Snubfin dolphins are more likely than other dolphins to be caught in gill nets because they prefer inshore estuarine habitats where river-nets are set.

• Snubfin families appear to spend much of their lives in very small territories close to shore. This means snubfin populations can be heavily impacted by habitat destruction and unsustainable development.

“These top ten facts were uncovered to better understand what we do and do not know about the snubfin dolphin. They will provide us with the benchmark we need to inform conservationists, government and scientists about how best to conserve and manage this unique and threatened species for future generations.”

Ms Gibson said that habitat destruction was the key threat to these coastal dolphins.

“There are already development proposals around the Great Barrier Reef that could affect their habitat – like the extension of the Townsville Port – that could have major impacts on these species. We must work with all relevant stakeholders to initiate a strategic environment assessment of future developments close to snubfin habitats.”

Australia’s largest online bank, ING DIRECT, joined WWF-Australia’s flagship species conservation program to help fund research into the snubfin dolphin, primarily in Queensland.

“We are even more proud now that we have been able to help researchers uncover a range of remarkable facts and insights that may help preserve this remarkable creature long into the future,” said Christian Bohlke, ING DIRECT Head of Branding and Communications.

ING DIRECT’s funded research has not only given insights into the, until now, secret lives of these dolphins, it has also revealed the threats they face from man.

“This overview sets the stage for the ongoing research needed to help us discover ways to minimise our impact on these unique Australian creatures. Companies like ING DIRECT that fund this research are helping us preserve an extraordinary creature and are building a legacy that will be enjoyed by Australians for generations to come,” Bohlke said.

About 80 whales and Bottlenose dolphins beached themselves

Whales lie along a stretch of beach in WA's South-West following a mass beaching. Photo: Tim Brown, www.aerophoto.com.au

A new fear has surfaced around a pod of whales stranded on a WA beach, with several dead whales washing up this morning with bite marks.

The Department of Environment and Conservation has warned rescue volunteers who have rushed to the area - who are already battling rough seas and strong rips - to stay out of the water, amid fears the dead mammals have attracted sharks.

Around 80 whales, thought to have been false killer whales, now identified as long-finned pilot whales, are stranded along the coastline of Hamelin Bay, WA.

The Augusta-Margaret River Mail reports rescuers are attempting to release 11 surviving long-finned pilot whales into Flinders Bay in South-West WA this morning after about 80 whales and bottlenose dolphins beached themselves over six kilometres of coast at Hamelin Bay, south of Margaret River, yesterday.

About 55 were found dead yesterday and 14 died overnight, leaving 11 survivors including a mother and baby.

Another nine whales washed up dead at Hamelin Bay this morning, with some showing bite marks.

About 100 people hurried to the site yesterday, including volunteers, Department of Environment and Conservation crew, police, vets and scientists.

The whales were in varying states of injury and stress, and it was decided to move them by truck to the calmer conditions of Flinders Bay to release them together in a pod.

The whales, originally thought to have been false killer whales, were identified and confirmed as long-finned pilot whales by DEC marine mammal specialist Doug Coughran, when he arrived at the site yesterday afternoon.

Both species are very similar in colouring and identification characteristics.

Laura Sinclair of the DEC information services unit said there had been some difficulty accessing some whales in a rocky area.

Carcass disposal operations using trucks filled with wet sand and foam mattresses have also begun to remove the dead whales from the beach.

Sergeant Andy Allison of Augusta police attended Hamelin Bay yesterday to conduct traffic management and crowd control.

He reported some verbal abuse towards DEC and Augusta-Margaret River Shire staff who had closed the access to the beach except to volunteers with the required equipment, such as boots to cope with cold night conditions in the water.

"People need to look at the bigger picture," he said.

Flinders Bay access was also shut down so the rescue operations could be carried out more easily.

Between 1984 and 2005 there were 21 mass strandings of whales and dolphins along the coast of WA, mostly between Busselton and Augusta.

In April 2005, 19 Long-Finned Pilot Whales were stranded in Busselton, while in June 2005, followed by 123 False Killer Whales stranded in the same area.

In 1986 a rescue of false killer whales in Augusta made world news.

Of a school of 114 whales, 96 survived and were returned safely back into the ocean.

Augusta-Margaret River Mail

Rare pink Bottlenose dolphin!

Rare ... pink dolphin in Louisiana

THIS is a flipping stunning picture of the worlds only PINK Bottlenose dolphin.

The dolphin, which is an albino, is the odd one out within its pod and after being spotted last year has been wowing visitors at a lake in Louisiana, US.

The mesmerising mammal was photographed making a splash by local charter boatman Captain Erik Rue, 42.

Cpt Rue has been studying the dolphin since it first surfaced in Lake Calcasieu, an inland saltwater estuary, north of the Gulf of Mexico.

He said: I just happened to see a little pod of dolphins, and I noticed one that was a little lighter.

It was absolutely stunningly pink.

Local men free dolphins trapped by ice

Three dolphins had been trapped for a week by drift ice in the harbor of Seal Cove, Newfoundland. Residents of the small community appealed to the local department of fisheries and oceans, but received no response.

Four local men finally took their own 16-foot boat, rammed it up on the ice, jumped out and began hacking a channel to the open sea…

“You’d hear them crying, every night,” said one of the men in the boat, Rodney Rice, 39. “I went down there last night and you could hear them trying to break up more ice. . . . They wouldn’t have lasted another day.”

“I had a floater suit on,” said Banks, “And they would come up and rest their head on me and I would keep their head out of the water so they can breathe through their blowhole.”

Are there some similarities between dolphins and humans?

This is the first installment in a regular column I will be writing for the Gloucester Daily Times.

You may have already seen my name in the Times over the past few months, providing information on seal strandings on Cape Ann. Last fall, we saw an unusually high number of harbor seal strandings on Cape Ann's shores, while currently, we are in the midst of the peak season for harp and hooded seal (ice seals) strandings.

I study seals and other marine mammals inhabiting the Gulf of Maine — humpback whales, North Atlantic right whales, and Atlantic white-sided dolphins, to name a few. In this column, I will share information about these and other inhabitants of the sea. In addition to covering marine topics pertinent to the Gulf of Maine, I will incorporate what I have learned from my wildlife research in other parts of the world such as Africa, Alaska, and New Zealand.

Similar to the evolutionary history of the marine mammals that I study, my own life's "evolution" started on land and has brought me to the sea. Born and raised in the land-locked state of Iowa, my interest in marine biology was originally peaked by taking a high school marine biology course in Des Moines. Two years later, as an undergraduate at Duke University, I was seaside at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, N.C. In Beaufort and later Zanzibar, Tanzania, I literally got my feet wet in the field of marine mammalogy by studying bottlenose dolphin behavior. While marine mammal field research is neither easy nor always "Discovery Channel" spectacular, I was hooked.

After earning my B.S. degree from Duke and working for a few years at a biotechnology company back in Des Moines, the pull of the ocean was too strong to overcome and once again I found myself seaside. This time it was in Texas, where I enrolled in a graduate program at Texas A&M University and was based at the marine biology campus in Galveston. While there are ample marine mammals residing off Texas' coast in the warm, subtropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico, my Master's and Ph.D. research brought me instead to the cool, subpolar waters of Alaska and New Zealand. In Alaska, I sought to understand the behavior of male sea otters in Prince William Sound, while in New Zealand, my quest was to unravel the social lives of dusky dolphins in the Marlborough Sounds.

While much of my research has focused on the mammalian inhabitants of the sea, I have also studied mammalian inhabitants of terra firma such as lemurs, chimpanzees, Colobus monkeys, and even humans. Despite being separated in space and time by millions of years of evolution, terrestrial mammals (especially primates) and marine mammals have more in common than you might expect.

In my next column, I will discuss some of these similarities and what we terrestrially-based humans can learn from marine mammals. In the meantime, please feel free to stop by and tour the Whale Center of New England's Visitor Center at 24 Harbor Loop in Gloucester. You will find a full humpback whale skeleton as well as amazing photos and facts about the whales and other marine mammals with which we share this blue world.

Heidi Pearson is the assistant director and stranding coordinator of the Whale Center of New England, based at harbor Loop in Gloucester.

CITA fight against dolphin parks!

The Cayman Islands Tourism Association would like to respond to comments published in the press regarding the two captive dolphin parks that have recently opened on Grand Cayman.

Our position has not changed; the CITA has been on record since 2002 as being opposed to these facilities and we have well researched and documented facts that support this position.

Already both captive dolphin attractions have employed many of their standard tactics to convince the public that they are a humane and valuable asset to the community.

Local tourism and marine pioneers have been used to spread their doctrine, the wonderful children of the Lighthouse School invited to play with the animals and small children and families pictured with the ‘smiling’ dolphins. And please don’t be misled about the employment opportunities for Caymanians and the economic value of new jobs; the majority of employees are foreign and that is not going to change any time soon.

There are no adequate facilities for captive dolphins. There are more elaborate and sophisticated ones, but no dolphin parks are suitable as wild dolphins swim hundreds of miles a day and have the whole ocean in which to live in.

They have been recorded to dive to depths of hundreds of feet. They live in a social family pod and nurse, nurture, teach and protect their young. Statistics show that the average life of a dolphin in captivity is seven years vs. 50 years in the wild.

Saying that the facilities in Cayman are world class or provide the best in care is very misleading. It is based on the underlying principal that some captive dolphin facilities are acceptable and it is the CITA’s position that they are not. These are highly intelligent mammals. They do not deserve to be captured, taken from their families, stressed and forced to live the rest of their lives in a swimming pool that is perhaps only 20 feet deep.

Regarding educating the public; yes we understand that both adults and children learn about dolphin behaviour and biology when they swim with these animals. People would probably love to ride a camel or see a wild cat too; however, that does not make it right to capture and incarcerate them here in Cayman.

Of course dolphins are entertaining, but this is something that they are forced to do in order to obtain their food. Dolphins are clever, which is why they are a highly valued commodity; they will exercise their skills in order to survive. If doing tricks is what it takes then they will do them. They are a sentient creature, which means that they have self awareness similar to humans. Surely we should not capture them for our own entertainment.

The CITA has opposed the captive dolphin facilities from long before any permits were granted, development started or animals imported, but we were not listened to.

In August 2008 we asked the Government to place a ban on any future imports of dolphins with a well documented paper on the impacts on capture to the wild dolphin populations. We have had no response to this request. The practice of herding, terrifying, wounding and killing is typical of all dolphin captures.

The Cayman park owners could argue that they purchased their dolphins from other parks, however the other parks will now have to restock their own facilities from the wild, so there can truly be no distinction.

If the developers are correct in their claim that these creatures breed successfully in captivity, there will be no need to import any more. We will stop being a party to the capture of wild dolphins and this is something that we can be proud of.

There is nothing Caymanian, sustainable or indigenous to having captive dolphin facilities in Cayman. We should not be a copycat destination but instead embrace ‘all things Caymanian’.

The CITA strongly supports tourism, including new development and diversification of our existing product. We encourage the growth of new properties, dive sites, restaurants and attractions but the CITA will not support either of the captive dolphin parks.

Will people visit these places? Perhaps, but is it right for the dolphins and our future vision of tourism in the Cayman Islands? That is for you to decide.

Once again, we beseech the Government to seriously consider the implementation of a ban on the future importation of cetaceans, as many other nations have already done.

We need to protect these marine mammals, the environment, the reputation of our tourism product and the culture and heritage of the Cayman Islands. Let your voice on this matter be heard.

You can request email copies of our position papers by emailing info@cita.ky