With unblinking eyes, let's look directly at the situation today:
There are at least 1000 Dolphins living in enclosures of one kind or another at this time. They are a unique population of Dolphins, many of whom have been born and raised in these circumstances, in some cases six generations from the wild.
The issue today is no longer whether we ought to have Dolphins amongst us, but must now be how we will care for them.
We must ask ourselves how we value them, and thereby consider the weight of the responsibility we must shoulder to host them.
How valuable is it to have Dolphins living nearby? What price are we willing to pay to have Dolphins who are accessible, for communication, play and sharing?
I suggest that there is high value in this, so high that we will need to re-assess social priorities, because it will require millions of dollars to build interspecies villages, lagoons with cabins around them, where Dolphins and Humans can live together.
The global situation of Dolphins today, who live close to Humans, is somewhat similar to the conditions of domesticated animals. The very idea of the domestication of animals (which seems to have originated in the days of Sumeria, where Oannes, one of the earliest of the Dolphin Gods, first appeared) has created a situation in which certain animals are totally dependent on Human care. Food is the primary means by which the domesticated animals, both livestock and companion animals, are managed. Control of the food supply, water and shelter are the mainstays of domestication.
The term “Domesticated Dolphins” seems antithetical, somehow in conflict with itself. And yet the situation in many places where Dolphins are under Human management is sadly little more than a state of domestication.
Hundreds and hundreds of Dolphins who were born in facilities, will never be candidates for release into the Oceans. It is now well accepted that many attempts to place Dolphins back into the sea have failed.
To maintain healthy Dolphins, they must live in mixed social groups, males and females together. It has been found that there is little problem for the majority of Bottlenose Dolphins living among humans when it comes to bearing young. They are reproducing at a steady rate. There are more and more Dolphins each year who are taking up their places inside our human world.
We have established systems for caring for them that have proven to be very successful, yet something is missing. The trainers and handlers are usually kind and caring people who are administering a regimen of food control, water quality management, stimulation, medical care, research projects and some form of interaction with Humans. This is a group of people, who, for the most part, have my most sincere admiration. It takes dedication most of us do not have to live among Dolphins, being always available for them.
Few places have both kinds of people living together, land and sea people. None have children as part of the normal environment, or any kind of nighttime interaction. I know of only one situation where the head trainer lives beside the lagoon...she listens to them breathe in the night, and talks to them while she is eating her breakfast on her veranda, overhanging the tropical lagoon...
The experiences of those who first live alongside Dolphins will be known in the future as the beginning of a new chapter of history. (This has already been depicted in the opening scenes of the film, 2010, written by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Dolphins are fed by the young son of the hero, in a pool that enters the livingroom of their house.)
It is inappropriate to treat Dolphins as domesticated animals, however. They are far more than any domesticated animal. While they are dependent on us to feed and provide for them, they are not entirely without choice in the matter. As extreme as it may sound, if life were entirely intolerable, they are capable of suicide, as evidenced by several well documented sources (O’Barry, Ric, Behind the Dolphin Smile, and Lilly MD, John C., Lilly on Dolphins). They are choosing to remain with us, and we must recognize this.
(Make no mistake, I am not saying that if Dolphins don’t like being captives they can kill themselves to be free. I am suggesting that Dolphins can, as they have in thousands of cases, let the people they live with know that they cannot tolerate the conditions they live under.)
In fact, the poor conditions under which some of them still persist in being with us is evidence in itself that they want to accompany us as long as they can. Again, it is a Human problem. We need to face up to this.
Since they are so willing to endure poor conditions in their efforts to enjoy our company, it seems obvious that they should be regarded differently.
It is my contention that we must accept the responsibility to provide all Cetaceans who live under Human care with excellent accommodations. I have seen a few places, being developed for swimming with Dolphins, that begin to show a new sensibility to these issues, but they all still need improvement (Three examples of the better kind: Dolphin Discovery at Chan Ka Nab on Cozumel Island, Mexico; the Subic Bay Marine Exploratorium, a new facility in the Philippines; and X-Caret, south of Cancun, Mexico. All three are pens along the shore of rainforest environments with huge areas, excellent water, great depth, [up to 55 feet deep in the Subic Bay facility], and a natural ambiance)
Natural bottoms, fresh sea water, tidal movement, waves, local fish, minimal reflective surfaces, as well as comfortable places for Humans to sit, float and swim amongst the Dolphins, are minimal conditions needed.
Large scale thinking is required, and a huge commitment by the Human family to this new level of relationship. To develop the type of coastal environment ideal for the interspecies villages of the future will cost tens of millions of dollars. (The Waikaloa Hilton Hotel on Hawaii has Dolphins living in it’s artificial lagoon, and the development costs of the hotel were reported to be around $350 million dollars.....)
Imagine a coastline...
Imagine a coastline that has been reshaped into a series of lagoons, fractal patterns of smaller and smaller bays. On the land are cabins and halls, restaurants and small shops. A large clinic sits on a peninsula sticking out into a bay, a scattering of small huts on another.
There is a place with grottos, dark water in wide caves, where one can float among the Dolphins.
A lagoon is shaped into small bays, each with a wheelchair elevator descending into the water. A water park, with islands of flowers and fruit trees, gardens and glades amongst waterfalls and streams surrounds a residential hotel. Walkways to the rooms follow the canals where the Dolphins live.
Off shore is a floating reef-like structure that does several things. It generates electricity for the region, using wave action. It changes the wave patterns that reach the beach, encouraging a different ecology along the shore. This quieter, sheltered inland passage welcomes migrating Whales, who come twice a year to visit. It creates a good area for Dolphins to rest each day, and to feed around.
The reef and some of the islands that make up the new coastline have been grown to shape by suspending wire frames in the sea with solar panels that create a trickle of electricity running through the mesh that is shaped as one wants the final structure to be. The minerals of the sea accrete rapidly on the forms, precipitating a coral-like cement. (Islands and reefs have been designed as needed and are being grown this way in several locations around the world currently.)
Young couples come for lessons in conception, generation and birth done in an entirely conscious way, with clear intent and awareness of the awesome responsibility of parenting. Conscious conception, conscious birthing. Water births, with Dolphin midwives...
A special area is devoted to spirit, a place for people to gather in reverence for the life we are given. Some sunken altar, some watery icon is contemplated by both families, both nations, and is the fulfillment of many dreams.
Channels between ponds, a winding canal that intersects with others, on which boats may be rowed, and swimmers can be towed and Dolphins can play tag...
This is the interspecies village. As envisioned by Dr. Lilly and his wife Toni, this will enable children of both Human and Dolphin families to be raised together. It is hypothesized that a form of communication will grow out of this relationship.
Once we have deepened our relationship with nature to the degree required to implement this dream, we will have become equals to the Dolphins. Think of them as having the dreams--and we have the means.
They are in tune with the world, and we are still learning to tune and play our instruments.
Both the Cetacean families and our own are the shepherds of the many forms of life that are here--ours on the lands, theirs in the sea.
We will develop a sustainable code of practice, a pattern for living that encourages the free Human spirit and still “preserves virtue”. This will by necessity place a reverence for water near the top of the list of ideal Human traits. Water will be cared for as part of spiritual practice, and will be recognized as the home of the Cetaceans.
All water, everywhere, is theirs.
By it, we live.
