WDCS welcomes the release of a new Public Service Announcement (PSA) aimed at raising awareness to the problem of feeding dolphins in the wild. Feeding wild dolphins is illegal under the US Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and is considered a form of harassment. The PSA, which features an animated dolphin in ‘rehab’, along with other species prone to receiving human hand-outs, highlights the dangers to dolphins of getting hooked on the provisioning of food by humans. The PSA was produced by a coalition of government agencies and private organizations.
The PSA reminds viewers that feeding wild dolphins is not only illegal, it is harmful to dolphins, even causing some to rely on begging for food from humans, upsetting their natural role as hunters and altering their diets. Feeding wild dolphins is a threat to humans, too. Dolphins sometimes become aggressive when seeking food and are known to bite when teased.
The health and welfare of wild dolphins is severely compromised when humans feed them. Human-fed dolphins change their normal wild behavior and run a greater risk of being injured by boats, becoming entangled in fishing gear, or ingesting dangerous items such as fishing hooks and contaminated food. Some dolphins become so accustomed to receiving routine hand-outs that they take fishing bait and catches from recreational and commercial fishermen. In one recent instance off the Florida panhandle, a bottlenose dolphin distracted by taking fish from a recreational fisherman was attacked by a large shark.
WDCS believes the proliferation of captive dolphin interactive programs is partially to blame for the public’s desire to interact with these animals in the wild. WDCS released a report in 2003 detailing the risks associated with dolphin petting and feeding pools in the United States. We continue to call upon the US Government to ban these dolphin interaction programs and for the public to avoid visiting them, in response to research exposing their harmful effects, and the downstream encouragement of such illegal and detrimental activities in the wild.
The report, “Biting the Hand that Feeds: the Case Against Dolphin Petting Pools”, illustrates that Petting Pools, where the public are able to pet and feed captive dolphins for a fee, place both people and dolphins at risk. WDCS carried out almost one hundred hours of systematic observation in1996 at Petting Pools found in Sea World parks across the US, with follow-up observations in subsequent years, up to and including 2006. The report exposes the unsafe, unsanitary and overcrowded conditions in which many captive bottlenose dolphins are forced to live. The report shows many of the dolphins to be obese, due to inconsistent diets compounded
by overfeeding from the public. The Petting Pool environment exposes dolphins to injury and stress from lack of sufficient refuge from the public.
Additionally, adequate supervision of the public by marine park staff at the pools is nearly impossible. Items like paper fish containers, sunglasses and coins have been seen tossed or dropped into the pool. Each of these has the potential to cause gastrointestinal blockage, poisoning and death if ingested by the dolphins. Marine Mammal Inventory Reports (MMIR), obtainable from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Office of Protected Resources, indicates that ingestion of foreign objects is a leading cause of death in captive dolphins. Fresh wounds, readily exposed to the unhygienic hands of visitors, were also observed in some of the dolphins during the research.
“The risk to the animals far outweighs any purported entertainment or educational value the public may get from these Petting Pools” stated Courtney Vail, US Policy Officer for WDCS. “We believe that these pools put wild dolphin populations at risk by teaching visitors that it’s OK to feed dolphins. In our minds, there is a real conservation issue associated with dolphin Petting Pools.”
Many scientists have observed illegal dolphin feeding throughout the southeast, especially since the NMFS prohibited feeding of wild marine mammals in 1993 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). Wild dolphin experts were also alerted to this problem through routine complaints from concerned citizens viewing the illegal behavior, and most recently through new videos posted to YouTube showing people feeding wild dolphins off Florida and South Carolina. A new WDCS program, Dolphin SMART, was developed in partnership with NMFS and others to address wild dolphin harassment, including feeding and swim-with activities.
Feeding and harassing wild marine mammals is illegal under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and can result in severe penalties with fines up to $20,000 and one year in jail for the most serious violations.
The PSA can be viewed at http://www.dontfeedwilddolphins.org/, which also has more information on dolphin conservation and guidelines for viewing dolphins responsibly in the wild. To report marine mammal violations, such as feeding wild dolphins or harassment, please contact NOAA’s Fisheries Service Enforcement Hotline at 1-800-853-1964.
For the dolphins’ sake, and for your safety, please do not feed, swim with or harass wild dolphins.
Download the PSA:
Via NOAA’s Fisheries Service
http://dontfeedwilddolphins.org/psa.zip
View the PSA on the Web:
Don’t Feed Wild Dolphins Web page:
http://www.dontfeedwilddolphins.org/
Other Links
NOAA’s Fisheries Service Protect Dolphins Campaign:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/education/protectdolphins.htm
WDCS Policy on Solitary Sociable Odontocetes