Word: dolphins
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...white dolphin heads to battle. She is a water-borne soldier who can swim to swift escape but has inadequate fighting skills. Her opponent materializes: the Armored Lizard. Damn! My dolphin is no match for its steely jaws and impenetrable skin. Next, I set loose the Blade Fly, whose razor pincers make for nasty weapons. I prepare for a fight. But this enemy is too clever: he has set a hidden trap that swallows the fly. "Game over," says Hiroaki Namikata. "You suck." I consider wringing his neck but decide this would upset his mom. "You'll get better...
...Manati Park in the Dominican Republic, one of the world's most controversial facilities, techno music blares from two large speakers as five dolphins bounce balls and beach themselves on concrete for $7 photo ops. Then the contact sport begins. To the strains of a Celine Dion ballad, a girl douses her hands and feet in disinfectant and grabs hold of dolphin Vicki's pectoral fins. Vicki pulls her passenger along the length of the 10-yd. by 17-yd. pool and returns to the trainer for a reward--two pieces of fish. Vicki then swims up to a group...
Humans also can face perils from these encounters. Recent data are hard to come by, since swim programs are not required to report human injuries. But a 1995 study in the U.S. found that dolphins, particularly those in unstructured swim-with programs, occasionally acted aggressively toward humans. The British-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society claims it has witnessed three encounters at Manati that endangered humans...
Some facilities work harder than others to make dolphins feel at home. Dolphins Plus, in Key Largo, Fla., fences off an area of the Florida Bay, thereby connecting the play area to the ocean. One of its owners, Rick Borguss, also holds stock in nearby Dolphin Cove, a natural lagoon surrounded by palm trees where children with disabilities interact with the sea mammals. Orlando's Discovery Cove has three man-made lagoons, seven holding pools, a medical pool for sick animals and a staff of 70-plus workers to tend to the needs of 30 dolphins...
That doesn't address a more fundamental question: Should dolphins become human pets? "I can show you a dolphin born inside of a building that has never seen the ocean, live fish or the sky," says Ric O'Barry, a consultant for the World Society for the Protection of Animals. "These are freaks we have created for our own amusement." He advises tourists not to buy tickets for dolphin swims or shows. But that flies in the face of another fact of nature--human nature...