Word: swims
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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After more instruction -- "Don't pet them around the blowhole; avoid their eyes" -- and a petting session during which we rub the dolphins' rubbery heads and bellies, we walk to a beach to begin our 20-minute swim. As we enter the water, George DelMonte of the San Francisco area tells me that the chance to swim with dolphins was a principal reason that he and his girlfriend chose to stay at the Hyatt. Encumbered by life jackets that serve mainly to prevent the overeager from pursuing animals to the depths, we flounder about as the young dolphins carve intricate...
...moment, though, nothing angers some conservationists so much as the swim-with-dolphin programs. The critics say the new fad stretches the limits of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which allows the "display" of dolphins under tightly regulated conditions but says nothing about programs in which people interact with the animals. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which monitors the capture and treatment of marine mammals, is holding a series of meetings to determine whether it should revise the way it permits private interests to use dolphins. For the swim programs, the stakes are high: they will have to shut down...
...Dolphin swim centers can be traced back to the thinking of scientist turned guru John Lilly. In the 1960s Lilly did serious studies of the dolphin brain, but by the 1980s he was arguing that dolphins relayed extraterrestrial guidance toward a higher consciousness. A parade of Hollywood celebrities, including Kris Kristofferson, Phyllis Diller and Olivia Newton-John, swam with Lilly's captive dolphins in Los Angeles. While few people really believed dolphins were Martians in wet suits, the swims caught on, first with New Agers and then with the general public, as private facilities such as the Dolphin Research Center...
...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...
...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 on juveniles, they will create a demand to take more young from the wild and, as the captive animals age, a growing population of superannuated adults...