Word: dolphins
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...What if we had a good-guy tuna company that was on the ((dolphin)) team? A lot of these guys would buy that, so their kids wouldn't get mad at them, right? And if it costs too much, we charge a penny more. We make it part of the game plan...
Many are concerned that a proliferation of swim programs will make them hard to regulate. "Every hotel in Hawaii wants to put a dolphin in the pool," asserts Georgia Cranmore of the NMFS. The agency has shut down one dolphin swim program, at the Hawk's Cay Hotel in Florida, because of technical violations...
...Hyatt swim program is by far the most elaborate yet devised. Run by veterinarians Jay Sweeney and Rae Stone, it tries to be educational as well as profitable. Special sessions are held for schoolchildren, who learn all about dolphins. Hawaii's superintendent of education Charles Toguchi gives Dolphin Quest high marks for its programs with island schools. The operators also devote a portion of their receipts to funding research on ways to save dolphins from drowning in tuna nets...
These efforts, however, have not silenced critics. Says Ben White of the activist group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, whose members take to the seas to disrupt whale and dolphin captures: "Yes, captive dolphins educate, but it's bad education. It tells people it is O.K. to keep these animals and make them do tricks...
...dolphins in the Hyatt program are juveniles, but adult male dolphins can be rough with humans and even sexually aggressive with women, whom they can easily distinguish from men. William Evans, a former head of NMFS, worries about the risk of injury to people from the 200-kg (about 450-lb.) fast-moving mammals as they become accustomed to people. "Familiarity breeds contempt," says Evans. "I've been slammed and bammed a bit, and I know of a few trainers hurt badly enough to put them in the hospital." If dolphin swim programs avoid such potential hazards by relying...