Dolphin Research Center, Marathon

February 15, 2012

Although we have spent quite a bit of time on boat maintenance and getting ready for the next portion of our trip, we have done some fun things including going to the Dolphin Research Center http://www.dolphins.org/.  This center has only dolphins that were born in captivity or for some reason had to be taken out of the wild and treated and kept in captivity.  None of them would be able to survive on their own in the wild.  This is the place where they advertise that you can swim with the dolphins.  We chose the General Admission which allows you to see the dolphins in their pods and go to any of the presentations that are done during the day.

We did attend two presentations, one about babies and the other which was a show of the juvenile females interacting with some of the people who had chosen to get personal with the dolphins.  The presentation on babies was a good place to start, since it not only taught us about the babies, but it also gave us some of the inside scoop related to the Center.  One thing we learned was that each mum chooses another female to act as a nanny for her child.  This helps the mum with the work of raising the baby dolphin and it helps to mentor the nanny for when she has a child.  Also, when the dolphin is first born, the umbilical cord snaps and this is the signal that the baby needs to go up and take its first breath.  At that point, the baby doesn't really know how to breath, so the mum has to teach it to slap its upper body on the water.  This allows the baby to breathe until it learns where its blowhole is and that it doesn't need to bring its whole upper body out of the water to take a breath.

The inside scoop included the fact that the juvenile males (who had been in two pods separating the older ones from the younger ones) had broken down the 'fence' that separated them, so they were all together now.  There was now a struggle to determine who were the dominate males, and part of this included raking which is essentially scratching the others and leaving what looked like tattoos on their hide.  The hide is very tough and thick, so these rakings did not draw blood (and would heal in a short period of time) but they did cause many people (who had not heard the story) to be concerned for their welfare.

We happened upon a couple things that were really more interesting than the presentations and  shows.  The first was a trainer performing an 'enrichment' excercise with the juvenile females.  In these excercises the dolphins are exposed to new objects and experiences. 

The juveniles were Gypsi and Cayo who were 5 or 6 years old, and Luna who was only two. 

Gypsi







Cayo



Luna

Juveniles normally stay with their mum until they are between 2 and 7, depending on the temperments of both the mum and the baby.  Luna, being very inquisitive, left her mother when she was 1 1/2, and she was definitely the most adventuresome of the three juveniles.  The trainer was trying to introduce a squirt gun which would also blow bubbles.  Luna was the first to actually go up and touch it, and she loved to have water squirted at her.  None of the 'girls' liked the bubbles.  Luna was fairly new to this pod, and the interactive show proved to be a bit difficult because she had bonded with Cayo and wanted to do everything with Cayo.  Because of this, we were able to see a 'time out', to try to settle down the three juveniles.

On the other end of the age spectrum, we saw a very experienced trainer working with Molly, who is 50 years old. 

Molly

The trainer held up a toy, and two assistants held up toys, one being the same and the other different.  The goal was for Molly to point at the two that were the same.  She had about a 60 - 70% success rate.  When someone asked how Molly was doing with the training, the response was that she was doing well considering that she is 50.  It's true also in the dolphin world that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

If you ever visit the Florida Keys, the Dolphin Research Center is definitely worth a visit.  We have seen many dolphins in the wild, and we love every minute, but we also enjoyed learning more about them and why they act the way they do in certain circumstances.

Joyce

Marathon

Monroe County, Florida