Broward Community College - Silver Sands Yearbook (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

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By initiating a new zoo concept, O'Feldman explained, they hope to set an example of what can be done with the dolphins. Currently located on Mashta Island on Key Biscayne, the Dolphin Project, which operates on donations and with the aid of 20 volunteers, has two small dolphins, each weighing about 200 pounds, in a one and a half acre lagoon which opens into the sea. Unlike themethods used at oceanaria where dolphins are fed and then expected to perform, the two dolphins, Liberty, the male, and Florida, the female, just eat . . . five times a day. Their diet consists of ten pounds of Spanish mackeral a day. When they're not eating, they're playing. They don't do much work, it's pretty much all play, Roger Stephens, one of the two night watchmen at the project, asserted. But even this location is not suitable for their plans because the water isn't sufficiently clear to enable them to study the dolphins, O'FeIdman noted. For this reason, the project will be relocated to Buck lsland National Park at St. Croix in the Virgin Islands in about a year. Described by O'Feldman as a Seaquarium without dolphins, they will be supplying the necessary ingredients to the park. This will be a perfect situation for scientists and students to study dolphins in their natural environment because the water is very clear, he added. Dr. Trudy described the optimal lagoon as an entire bay where the dolphins could live but not leave. We want to provide a lagoon large enough for a realistic natural environment because we have to restrict the dolphins to that area to protect them from hunters, pollution, kooks and other animals that would endanger them, Trudy noted. In addition to the dolphin research station, the 250 member foundation wants to initiate the necessary legislation that would stop people from hunting dolphins in Biscayne Bay. Dr. Truby noted that only one species of dolphin is native to Florida, Tursiops truncatus, familiar to most people as the Bottlenose dolphin. This is the dolphin which performs at oceanaria throughout the world, and appears on television and in motion pictures. Although there aren't many Bottlenose dolphin left in Biscayne Bay, according to Truby, there is a small number in there. lf the fishermen left them alone the dolphins would restock themselves in the bay, he added. The fisherman, some of which are professional dolphin hunters, O'Feldman noted, obtain permits from Tallahassee to hunt the Bottlenose Dolphin, which are later taken to Europe for use in oceanaria, and sold to private conce well as to the US Navy. Although Tallahassee has declared Biscayne Bay pol O'Feldman maintains that there is a large amount of and animal life in the bay. I don't think the water pollution harms dolphins, but -i air pollution is bad it could be harmful because air is A right into dolphins' lungs, he added. ' Truby explained that dolphins, employed by the US if are being trained reportedly to carry knives to kill ei frogmen off Vietnam and they are also being trained to explosives. He noted that in general dolphins have a good understaa of people's intentions. These dolphins are probably tri to believe that what they're doing is fun or a joke, he ai He explained that the dolphins are being trained at thi Navy Undersea Warfare School located at Point Ml California. People should know about it, they're using our money added. From working with dolphins, l don't see how it cou done, O'Feldman, who was a diver in the Navy, said. not sure, but if they do this, they must use drugs witl dolphins. lt would be easy to do with drugs, he si When they're not eating, they're playing. They don't do much says Roger Stephens, night watchman at the Dolphin Project. pm-'Swv

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ia World Dolphin Foundation is currently involved with the phin Project, a project designed to do just that, learn more ,ut the dolphin and provide an opportunity for people to lerve the dolphin in its natural environment. L 5 O'Feldman, director of the Dolphin Project who worked he Seaquarium for 10 years, noted that all the scientific wledge about the dolphin has been gained through the y of dolphins in captivity. There is no place that does entific study on dolphins in their natural state, he added. lbecame tired of seeing them in captivity, he explained. seems like the natural evolutionary thing to do is to get 'ond a captive-captor relationship and create a new ernative. ating a new alternative is the primary goal of the Dolphin lject. i 'eldman explained that they want to study how dolphins ', the dolphins' family structure and the dolphins' migratory IIIS. 'ziated about three years ago, the foundation is dedicated lprotecting, preserving and understanding all forms of life, Henry M. Truby of Miami, the foundation's president ed. The ecological foundation's ultimate goal, according Truby, is to preserve the dolphin and any other endangered cies, by establishing methods for their preservation and cating the public. need to influence the public's eco-attitude, Truby said. need to stop the drain of natural resources. We may be to raise dolphins, but they won't be able to exist in their ral state. The habits of man are making it increasingly e difficult for natural resources to survive, he added. lphins have survived all onslaughts of nature...except ,H he claims. They won't survive man's persistent elty. e dolphin, a member of the family Delphindae which is wprised of 22 genera and 55 species, is an air breathing, k giving, warm blooded mammal. Dolphins also belong a larger group of sea mammals, cetacean, a unit of the nmalian order which includes whales, porpoises as well as hins. Like its relative, the whale, the dolphin is also atened with extinction. h advancements in recent years in fishing technology, s estimated that 500,000 dolphins are drowned every year the Pacific Ocean in purse-seine nets employed by the US a fishing industry while several species are threatened with inction. in Aristotle's time, tuna fishermen today still use dolphins to locate and follow schools of tuna, Truby explained. When a helicopter spots dolphins surfacing for air it radios the ship which releases a purse-seine net, which measures 15 miles in length and not only entraps the tuna but also entraps at the same time as many as 2000 dolphins. After being netted, it is reported that the dolphins usually swim frantically about in a desperate effort to escape. In one corner of the net they huddle together singing while those that instinctively sound or dive to the bottom usually become ensnared in the meshing. Unable to surface for air, they drown. Other dolphins become so frightened that they go into a state of shock and drown also. Since they will not generally abandon their young or desert another dolphin that seems to be in danger, the rest make little attempt to escape. As a result, in the Pacific Ocean schools of dolphins are decreasing in size and number at an alarming rate. Dr. Truby explained that federal legislation has been passed providing for a 15 year moratorium against the intentional killing of sea mammals. However, he added that the tuna fishing industry claims it isn't intentionally killing dolphins. So it comes down to a question of whose intent. You lthe tuna fishing industryl don't plan it, but you kill them, he said. l would like to see an entire generation educated where they wouldn't kill anything, if you could influence an entire generation, the general attitude of mankind would improve, he noted. People need to be educated to respect life, he added. One objective of the Dolphin Project is to initiate a change in the zoo concept. According to Truby, people are deluded to see everything that they see in an exhibit. They are less concerned to see animals do what they do best. They want to see animals do what people do best. As an example, he cited that dogs do the things that dogs do just great. lt isn't natural for a dog to wear clothes, jump through hoops and beg for his food. Those are things that people do. lt's time people stopped thinking of the dolphins as some kind of 'human'. They're not. They're dolphins. Dr. Truby noted that oceanaria are doing a fine job by simple enabling people to see fish, but the foundation hopes to do more. The Dolphin project wants to accommodate a better exhibit in an outdoor natural situation.

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'lphins don't get hostile, he explained. l've never seen ostile dolphin. riey are very conscious animals, he noted. They are oably the most conscious and highly evolved animal in the ii BD. :phins have a superior echo-ranging device similar to sonar, by explained. He knows where he is and what's around at all times. As a result, a dolphin is never in a dangerous . II lation, he added. Cause of this device he is practically guaranteed his l tence, Truby noted. lean life is rough. The majority of dolphins are 'roughing ll the time, he explained. I suppose the life span of 1 lphin in its natural environment is at least 40 years, most lly more, he said. fever, he added that in captivity the life span of a dolphin ,ss than ten years. ii dolphins have been used on the Flipper television show now all of them are dead, he noted. lTruby, professor of linguistics at the University of lVliami, ked with dolphins in the area of communications for lO l's, which included work with Dr. John Lilly at the nmunication Research Institute in Coconut Grove. Man uses 6,000 different languages throughout the world, yet people can't get along in one language, he asserted. People NEED to know how to obtain food, water and a means to live. They don't need to know what is happening elsewhere. Dolphins communicate only the things necessary to live, not superflous ideas, he claims. Truby explained that the dolphin which has a hearing ability 10 times higher than man's hearing, has four methods of communication, including sonar and three techniques of vocalization which can be used under water as well as in the 3ll'. The three methods of vocalization are whistles and click train, both used by dolphins to communicate with other nearby dolphins, and humanoids, a term invented by Dr. Lilly which describes the dolphins' imitative vocalizations of human language. I don't think the dolphin can learn human language because he has no incentive to learn it and lacks the necessary equipment to learn the language, Dr. Truby claims. The dolphin doesn't learn, he mimicks. lf he learns, why would he choose English? Why wouldn't he choose to learn dolphinese or whaIese? he added. Dolphins. What do you think of when someone mentions dolphins now? xg - ,.... H Q f , ,,,. --5, sv r- , evil' V'---gr, J.. . W e , L . 1 ua 111.1-1 Y ,,,,,,,.. e -gulf' :H l . QF x 1 i jf-F' i -, d