"On The Way Home"

Marine mammal “open ocean” training was first established in the early 50’s. Today there are but two privately owned facilities worldwide practicing this high level of training. None are located in the United States. Imagine firing up your skiff, dropping the gates, releasing one or two dolphins and heading out to sea. Find a nice spot, drop anchor, go for a swim with your animals or better yet, don SCUBA and go for a dive. There is no better way to physically exercise and mentally stimulate dolphins than through “open ocean” training. Toss in the odd encounter with wild dolphins, schools of fish and other marine life and you quickly realize it is impossible to duplicate this level of exercise and mental stimulation by any other means. Having been Operations Manager for an overseas open ocean training facility for 15 years, I tried for many years to introduce this concept to US based marine mammal facilities and NGO’s. Thinking with the nationwide public outcry for marine facilities to return their dolphins back to the ocean, I had a viable and proven solution. Sadly, I was mistaken, no one was interested in a solution. I hope you enjoy this short clip taken on one of our dolphins during an open ocean training session, next to raptors, dolphins are one of my favorite animals to train. Pretty cool work if you can get it, plus dolphins always have a smile on their face! If anyone is interested I can upload more dolphin content. I did a very cool research video on dolphin hydrodynamics and how tail flukes work. Let me know and I'll post it.