The Dolphin in the Mirror (37 page)

Aquariums, if they are to be viable in the future, must develop educational venues that allow people to experience for themselves the remarkable cognitive abilities and social prowess of dolphins. Rather than putting on 1950s-style dolphin shows, educational and entertaining films could be shown to teach visitors about dolphins, including the traits that have made them so interesting to the public from ancient times to the present. Aquariums need to provide experiences and tell stories that create the pattern that connects us to dolphins in a visceral way. And it is also the responsibility of aquariums to educate people about the plight of dolphins in the wild and engage their participation in alleviating the problems. In other words, I think that any aquarium that maintains social groups of dolphins must commit not only to attending to the welfare of the individuals in its care but also to fighting for the welfare of dolphins in the wild, including the conservation and protection of wild populations. If these two conditions are met, I support this second, more complex proposal, that aquariums maintain the current population of captive dolphins. I support it now in the world we live in, because at this point dolphins and whales need to be in the public eye and heart. We need to fight for their protection.

The past half a century has seen an odd contradiction in the evolution of zoos and aquariums, at least as far as dolphins are concerned. The first zoos were little more than menageries, often established by noblemen as curiosities, displaying exotic animals captured from the Dark Continent. The animals were viewed as spectacles or even freaks, housed in small cages with prisonlike bars. Beginning in the twentieth century, zoos gradually became wildlife parks, providing animals with more space and richer environments that approximated their natural habitats in some measure. No one is fooled into thinking that he is in a truly natural environment when he goes to a wildlife park, but from an animal welfare point of view, these establishments are a terrific improvement over menageries.

For dolphins in aquariums, the opposite has occurred. Where once they swam in the company of fish, turtles, seals, and other sea life, they are now too often housed in sterile tanks, in the interests of sanitation. Not all aquariums do this, of course, but most do. And most aquariums continue to see dolphin shows as not only appropriate but as centerpieces of their aquariums. Many managers of aquariums maintain that dolphin shows are what the public wants. They want to see dolphins do higher and higher jumps to reach the omnipresent ball hanging from above. Frankly, I find dolphin shows to be old style rather than forward looking and transformational. They take us back to the mentality of menageries, with animals being held as spectacles to be ogled. Having dolphins jump higher and higher and do ever more clever tricks demeans them as objects; it does not respect them for the kind of animals they really are. I view aquariums that indulge in these archaic displays as letting down both people and dolphins.

There once was a time when chimpanzees in zoos were dressed in human clothes and made to act out tea parties, ride bikes, smoke pipes, all kinds of activities that had nothing to do with the kind of creatures that chimpanzees are. One has to be getting on in years to remember these spectacles, because many years ago they were recognized as demeaning and stopped. When will making dolphins perform tricks that have nothing to do with their lives be similarly recognized as demeaning, and similarly stopped?

Millions of people go to aquariums each year because they love the animals they see. They also learn about the animals' minds, not just how big they grow, where they live, and what they eat. Given the chance, people are eager to learn more.

There's an exhibit at the Bronx Zoo that is a model for aquariums with dolphins. It's called the Congo gorilla forest, and it centers around a family group of gorillas that live in about as natural a setting as can be hoped for outside the mountains of Rwanda. Before visitors get to see the gorillas they are treated to an enthralling film in which a wildlife biologist talks about gorilla family life, social interactions, and foraging, and conjures up what it is like to be in the presence of gorillas. She also talks about the ugly side of gorilla life and the real threats they face, including poaching, which involves the beheading of gorillas and the removal of their hands and feet, prized trophies for misguided people somewhere in the world. The film ends with a young gorilla peering out at you through bushes as music rises in a crescendo—at this point you feel like you would do anything to protect these animals. It's theater, it's drama, it's reality, and viewers understand that they can do something that will make a difference. The screen rises and the curtains open, revealing an expansive green hillside with live gorillas. The visitor might be standing just a few feet away, though safely behind glass, from a mother nursing her young, or adolescents romping with one another on top of a patient silverback male. At the end of the exhibit, the visitor is allowed to choose which Congolese wildlife species he wants his entrance fee to help protect.

It is not a stretch to imagine an exhibit with dolphins that honors the same principle, that invites people into the lives of these animals, teaches them about the dolphins' plight in the world, and then gives them an opportunity to act. The National Aquarium, in Baltimore, where I currently do my research, is working toward a similar strategy, which is evident in its vision statement. It says that its goal is to "inspire our visitors and partners to celebrate and nurture the world's aquatic habitats from tropical rain forests to coral reefs; from our Chesapeake Bay to the world's oceans." It goes on to say that "through pioneering science, conservation, and educational programming, we will confront the pressing issues facing global aquatic habitats. Our legacy to future generations is a world in which aquatic habitats are preserved and restored." People can watch videos of dolphins interacting with the mirror, which is a very powerful way for them to understand that there is more to being a dolphin than doing physical tricks with a ball.

It isn't hard to imagine educational exhibits with dolphins that include active sessions with underwater keyboards. Such an interactive system would not only offer the dolphins more control in obtaining toys and activities but also present them in the context of animals that are "minded" individuals. It would serve as an interface between us and the dolphins so they could make observable and clear requests and we could comply. As I write these words, my colleagues and I are in the planning phase of an underwater touchscreen for dolphins. (The ones I used with Delphi and Pan are positively archaic by comparison.) And members of the public could be directly involved. Remember that Lou Herman taught his dolphins to understand and respond to short sentences of hand gestures. Visitors could watch as a dolphin is given sentences, even novel sentences that visitors create for the dolphins based on a set of known word-gestures. I am certain the audience would be amazed by their cognitive feats. Dolphins could demonstrate their natural sensory abilities too, such as their use of echolocation and its relationship to how they acoustically see the world. All it takes is some imagination and a leap beyond the idea that dolphins are little more than accomplished aquatic gymnasts with nothing going on in their minds.

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I have viewed my work with dolphins through two different lenses, distinct from each other but complementary. There is the lens of scientific rigor that I use to find that extra swath of evidence, that extra data point that will help prove a thesis. And there's the more lyrical lens, a lens that is sensitive to the patterns that connect all of us to that ineffable essence of nature. It is the part that responds emotionally to Eiseley's poem "Magic" when I read it to my students. It is the part that understands viscerally the presence of dolphins.

During the days when I was at Marine World, I was also on the faculty of San Francisco State University. One day I was walking across the campus escorted by Orson, one in a sequential line of three incredibly smart (and humongous) Newfoundland dogs that I have rescued and adopted over the years. A stranger walked up to us, looked directly into my dog's eyes, and said, "Wow, it really seems like there's someone in there." I share that very feeling when I am in the presence of dolphins. There is someone "in there" looking back at me. Not a person, but someone. An individual with a mind, not so unlike mine in many ways. There is also a sense of awe at their physicality—they are big, muscular, and supremely adapted to their environment. But there is more than that. There's a quality of intelligence. Despite profound evolutionary distances, despite profound differences in physical adaptations between us, one for terrestrial life, the other for life in the seas, we are profoundly similar in many cognitive domains. Yet at the same time, the dolphin is an alien intelligence and will perhaps never be seen clearly through our human lens.

The observation area for mirror work at the National Aquarium is a darkened shaft in the midst of a complex of three pools; there's a window into each pool onto which I can affix a two-way mirror so I can watch the dolphins' constantly inquisitive antics. It has to be completely dark inside this area we call "the pit" to transform a piece of acrylic into a mirror, so I cover the other windows with black velvet drapes. Despite the cramped quarters, I am usually joined by my collaborators Sue Hunter, the head of the animal programs at the aquarium, and one of my doctoral students, Rachel Morrison. We remain silent, not wanting the dolphins to be aware of us.

I watch little Foster cavorting playfully, opening his mouth and carefully inspecting inside or tilting his head and blowing a bubble, watching as it rises, and then doing it all over again. As I see these things I am aware of a mind at work that is far beyond that of my Newfoundlands, much as I loved them.

Humans and dolphins may be among the few species that reciprocate a very special emotion, empathy. I have been involved in many rescues of dolphins, some of which have been stranded on beaches. And I am always struck by the way that people rush to help. The impulse to do so is almost primal. There just is something about the presence of dolphins that touches us. At some point during the rescues I usually find myself standing in waist-deep water with at least one other person supporting the distressed animal so that it won't sink and drown, just as I stood with some of my students supporting Gordo in the hours before he died.

Not so long ago it struck me that what my colleagues and I do in these situations is mirrored by what dolphins sometimes do when they rescue a person in trouble at sea. They stop the person from sinking and drowning by positioning themselves alongside him, one on either side. What a beautiful symmetry of actions. Is there a beautiful symmetry of emotions here too? I do not know. But in the language of science, it seems to me more parsimonious to imagine that, to some degree at least, there is, rather than deny the possibility simply because I don't know.

The long loneliness that Eiseley spoke about was the idea that humans were special and apart from the rest of the living world, thanks to our sense of self, our capability of conscious altruistic behaviors born from empathy, our reflection and intention. And indeed, if we alone possessed these qualities, it would be a lonely planet. Yet each of these traits is shared with dolphins and some other species as well. We share more than we ever could have imagined with these other minds.

Eiseley wondered what intelligence would look like if we exchanged our hands for fins and our ungainly terrestrial forms for that of dolphins, these minds in the water. We would leave behind the trappings of civilization, where intelligence is reflected in what we do in the world, for good and for ill. Eiseley finished his essay reflecting on that hypothetical transformation, three sentences that I read as the final part of the final class of my animal-communication course. And I will end this book in the same way:

"Perhaps such a transformation would bring him once more into that mood of childhood innocence in which he talked successfully to all things living but had no power and no urge to harm. It is worth at least a wistful thought that someday the [dolphin] may talk to us and we to him. It would break, perhaps, the long loneliness that has made man a frequent terror and abomination even to himself."

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EXCERPTED FROM PRESS RELEASE ISSUED IN
2006)

An international consortium of scientists and leaders from the zoo and aquarium community are calling upon the Japanese government to end the infamous dolphin drive hunts in Japan. From September to April each year dolphin drive hunts are conducted by small groups of Japanese fishermen whose activities are regulated by the Japanese government. During the hunts, fishermen herd hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dolphins and other small cetaceans into shallow bays by banging on partially submerged rods that create a sonic barrier. Once there, the dolphins are corralled into nets and then speared, hooked, hoisted into the air by their tails by cranes in a manner that is inhumane by any standard. The animals are then slaughtered in an unjustifiably brutal manner, eviscerated alive, and many are left to die a long and painful death. The group contends that the hunts are a blatant violation of any reasonable animal welfare standards and are indefensible given the growing body of scientific research on dolphin cognitive abilities, cultural richness, and their capacity to experience pain and suffering.

Two years ago AZA and WAZA adopted advocacy statements calling for an end to the dolphin drives in Japan. A small delegation of zoo and aquarium scientists and professionals including Dr. Diana Reiss, Senior Research Scientist at the New York Aquarium of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Dr. Paul Boyle, Director of the New York Aquarium of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Steve Olson, Director of Government Affairs of the AZA started a dialog and meetings with the Japanese Embassy to discuss the need to end dolphin drives. Despite compelling scientific evidence, these discussions have been unproductive.