Coming up next on Jonathan Bird's Blue World,
Jonathan heads down to the island of Curaçao to meet up with
a friendly dolphin named Annie.
Hi, I'm Jonathan Bird and welcome to my world!
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Some say that dolphins are the most intelligent animals in the ocean. Many divers consider
swimming with wild dolphins to be the ultimate underwater experience. But finding wild dolphins
that will cooperate is no easy task.
This is the alternative—the dolphin encounter at the Curacao Seaquarium where trained dolphins
love to interact with divers.
Curacao is an island in the southern Caribbean, not too far from the coast of Venezuela.
Divers love Curacao because of the warm, clear water and healthy coral.
The Curacao Sea aquarium was built in 1984 and one of its biggest attractions is the
dolphin program.
Not only can divers and snorkelers interact with dolphins here, but they can even take
a half-day course to learn how dolphins are trained.
Today I'm going behind the scenes to learn from the master: George Kieffer, the head
of the dolphin program here at the Sea aquarium.
The day starts before sunrise as George sorts the fish for the dolphins to eat. Each dolphin
eats 25 to 30 pounds of herring a day, hand fed by the trainers. George carefully checks
the quality of each and every fish that the dolphins will eat, and selects only the best
ones. The others go to the shark exhibit.
Basically, the rule in the fish kitchen is "When in doubt, throw it out."
Later, I head out to the lagoon to get an introduction to interacting with the Bottlenose dolphins
Rubbery! Like a wet inner tube.
It's a little silly, but I get to kiss a dolphin.
Nearby, another group are learning to interact more closely with the dolphins.
But my next stop is George's office, where
I learn about Bottlenose dolphins by taking his hour-long dolphin course. After I become
more knowledgeable about dolphin behavior, I'll be ready for my big adventure—a dolphin
dive on the reef.
Later, I head to the dive boat where I meet
several other divers who are joining me on the dive.
George gives us a few last words of advice for interaction. Underwater, there is no feeding,
so the dolphins can choose whether or not they want to interact with the divers. How
we act around them will have a huge impact on their willingness to play.
It's OK to touch her fins, the pectoral fins on both sides, the dorsal fin on her back,
it's OK to touch those, but don't hold on. Don't grab her. She's holding her
breath down there, so imagine somebody grabbing you underwater. By late in the dive, she is
going to be very comfortable with everybody. She might even swim right up to you, face
to face, and if she comes right to you, cup your hands like this. She might just drop
her chin right there in your hand and let you rub under her chin. She does like that.
Just don't comb your hand over her face.
Finally, we leave the dock and head to the open sea. Somewhere out there, a dolphin is
following the boat! Although the dolphins live at the sea aquarium, they allow one or
two out onto the reef every day to play with divers and get some exercise. Today it's
a female named Annie.
Finally it's time to suit up and, with a little luck, play with a dolphin!
I'm Ready!
52 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:25,510
Jonathan: Are you ready Tim?
Cameraman Tim: Ready. Go.
I hit the water and immediately start looking all around. I hope Annie is in a playful mood
because if she's not, she might not come and play with us. When the dolphins are out
on the reef, they are free to do as they please.
But I don't have to wait long. As soon as she hears scuba bubbles, Annie comes over
to check us out. It turns out the dolphins love to play with divers.
This is one of those times when it's great to be the guy with a huge video camera. Annie
is a real ham...she races around me putting on a show in front of my lens, swooping in,
twisting and turning, then zipping around behind me and back to the front faster than
I can even turn to keep up with her. The faster I turn to keep up, the faster she swims around
me. I'm starting to get dizzy!
She seems to be having a great time, but then she leaves. George has jumped into to join
the fun and Annie goes right to him. George is her pal.
This is good news for all the divers in our group, because George comes over and stays
with us, so Annie will too.
At first Annie only wants attention from George. He shows us how he has trained her to stick
her tongue out. She stays down with us for so long, sometimes I forget that dolphins
are mammals and breathe air. Every few minutes she needs to run to the surface for a breath.
But after she gets back with a fresh breath of air, George encourages her to say hello
to some of the other divers. Soon he brings her to me and she stays still so I can touch
her soft skin. It feels rubbery and slick, like a wet inner tube. But I can feel her
strong muscles underneath that skin. She is a powerful animal, capable of swimming 30
miles per hour—which is really fast underwater!
As George introduces her to the next diver, I film the fun and marvel at the incredible
relationship Annie has with George. You can just tell that they are great friends.
Sometimes when I'm in the middle of a shoot like this I get so involved in being a cameraman
that I forget to appreciate the excitement of what I'm actually doing. Not today. Because
right now I'm doing one of the things that almost all divers dream about—diving with
a dolphin! And it's awesome!
All too soon however, the fun has to end. We can't hold our breaths for minutes at
a time so when our scuba tanks get low, it's time to head back to the boat.
Now that was fun! You can tell the dolphins are kinda used to that shtick. You know it's
like "Oh it's Monday, it's my day to go play with the humans. Oh man, I can't
believe it, can you take my Monday?"
It does make one point. They're captive, but they must not mind it took much because,
if you can bring them out of the reef—if they didn't like it, they could swim away.
But they don't. So they must find something about it not so bad.
The fact is that the dolphins at the Sea aquarium were born and raised in captivity and the
hard part isn't keeping them from swimming away, but in fact convincing them to leave
the safety of their home and go out on the reef, as George explains.
The easy part of the program is coming back. Going out has traditionally been the more
difficult part of the training. And I think the reason why is, coastal bottlenose dolphins
are territorial. They don't roam the oceans, they're not like these pelagic species that
will move about through huge swathes of the open sea. No, these guys adopt a coastline
and they stick to it. So what we're doing is—once they have become accustomed to their
facility—what you're doing is you are sort of exposing them to more area around
the facility and they are co-opting that as their range, their territory.
George also explained that not all of the dolphins like to go outside the Sea aquarium.
Some prefer to interact with people in their private lagoon.
I'm so glad to discover that these dolphins are happy and healthy at the Curacao Sea aquarium,
and especially grateful to one special dolphin named Annie who came out to play with me,
even if it was just for an hour.
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