Let Flipper Find His Own Fish - wild dolphins and human feeding

Boat/US Magazine, Jan, 2000 by Ryck Lydecker

Forget about "Jaws." It's time to watch out for "Beaks," the 300-pound marine mammal with a perpetual smile hiding a hundred sharp, cone-shaped teeth. This wild carnivore can bite you twice and get away with it. Not only is it highly intelligent, it's got the law on its side. Welcome to the flip side of Flipper.

You've seen them riding the bow wave of your boat, patrolling the beach just beyond the breakers or bursting from the briny to leap clear of the water, apparently just for the fun of it. And you've seen them perform amazing feats at aquarium shows, saving the day on TV or hunting down the bad guys in the movies.

But you don't want to see them come alongside your boat, head up out of the water with that big fish-eatin' grin, to shake you down for a snack. That's when dolphins have been known to bite the hand that feeds them and when the long arm of the law can levy a $20,000 fine if you do.

Don't Feed the Little Beggars

"Dolphins are not the peaceful, enlightened aliens from Atlantis that people think they are," says marine mammal biologist Thevor Spradlin, of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). "This is a wild animal living in its natural environment and that means its behavior, quite naturally, is going to be unpredictable.

"But this is not what people have learned from the popular culture," he adds. "There is a very pervasive mythology that dolphins are cute and tame and the friend of man.

"People don't understand that human interaction, like feeding, actually harms the animals. It can leave them malnourished and make them susceptible to disease," Spradlin states. "Feeding them also alters their natural behavior. Instead of hunting live fish, they become accustomed to begging for hand-outs and lose their natural wariness which protects them from injury from moving boats or predation by sharks. Beside that, it's illegal"

Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it's a federal offense to "harass" animals like the bottlenose dolphin commonly seen in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic coast, as well as its offshore cousin, the common dolphin or the Pacific's spinner dolphins, not to mention relatives like whales, seals, sea lions and manatees.

"Harassment" means to catch, injure or interfere with the animals' normal activities. Penalties can run to a year in jail, in addition to a fine. There have been few citations, however, as officials have opted for education instead.

Feeding dolphins in the wild is specifically prohibited under a 1991 amendment to the law which a federal appeals court upheld in 1993. But people feed them anyway, says Spradlin, noting that it's often done out of ignorance.

Whether intentional or innocent, dolphin feeding and behavior-altering interactions have increased "at an alarming rate" throughout the Southeast since the late 1980s, Spradlin reports. And that's led at least one dolphin to seek his fortune far from home.

Dolphin 56, Where Are You?

The Indian River, about midway down Florida's Atlantic coast, is dolphin country where biologists have been studying these animals and their interactions with humans since the 1970s. One in particular, "Dolphin 56," dramatizes the concern that feeding them can disrupt their natural life patterns and put them "at risk".

Bottlenose dolphins tend to live out their lives in a relatively limited home range, but Dolphin 56, so named for the identification number biologists marked on his dorsal fin in 1979, seems to have itchy fins.

For nearly 20 years, scientists documented this male dolphin's life in his resident Indian and Banana Rivers as well as his increasing habit of hustling up his meals from boaters. Then, in 1996, Dolphin 56 surprised researchers when boaters and others began to report seeing him in coastal waters up into the Carolinas and even as far north as New York.

But the reports said this was no accidental tourist. This was an aggressive panhandler who had learned from Florida boaters and fishermen bow to sing for his supper. And it seemed he'd decided to take his act on the road.

Such high-pressure hustling can lead to another problem that Spradlin doesn't even want to think about. Human-fed dolphins can get very aggressive and may be labeled as "nuisance animals" like the bears-turned-beggars at national parks' which sometimes have had to be destroyed. That hasn't happened to any dolphins yet.

But Spradlin says people need to respect dolphins in their natural habitat and let them stay wild. Fortunately, he says, most boaters are getting the message.

Many a Moocher

"Our focus is on education and when we explain that feeding is illegal and can actually harm the dolphins, most boaters say, 'We had no idea' and they stop doing it."

Nonetheless, Spradlin says, Florida is a "harassment" hotbed where feeding is all too common around Panama City, Melbourne, Sarasota and Key West. These four areas are all targets of an NMFS public information campaign in collaboration with the Florida Marine Patrol, and Spradlin says officers have handed out "literally hundreds of warnings" in the last three years.