Is this "Dolphin Smart"?

Regulations regarding wild dolphin encounters in Hawaii (Oahu in particular) have not changed in the last few years. However, operators are adding and/or upsizing dolphin-focused boats and/or adding more trips per day. 

The Wild Dolphin Foundation, its members and the Waianae Coast Community have been lobbying legislatures, and government agencies to implement enforceable, effective and culturally-correct regulations to protect the resident pods of Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins for close to a decade.

In a weak response, NOAA has recently promised (threatened?) to institute its Florida and bottlenose dolphin-based Dolphin Smart program in our very different area in an effort to protect our very different dolphins. Unfortunately there is no enforcement aspect to this program - a criteria pinpointed by community stakeholders as crucial.

The second Dolphin Smart program was instituted in Alabama through a collaboration of six agencies and heavily advertised (a draw for operators to get onboard with the program). But while more than half of the 26 dolphin watch operators in the area expressed a strong desire to participate, by the time Dolphin Smart hit the streets, only ONE operator signed up. The program guidelines just didn't make sense - nor did they address the dolphin impact problems that operators were witnessing.

Following the lack-of-enforcement train of thought, notice that the one operator who did sign up for the Florida program being used in Alabama, has a customer photo on their comments page that shows a picture (to the right) seemingly taken at less than the "Dolphin Smart" required 50 yard distance.

This violating operator is the sole benefactor of the collaborative marketing power of 6 governmental and non-profit agencies. Likewise, the same agencies do not seem to have been able to change the practices of a single operation through Alabama's Dolphin Smart program.

Florida's operators formed their own alliance in 1997, and designed a quite effective Code of Ethics and Operator Guidelines. None of these allied operators will be found as participants of Dolphin Smart, nor did NOAA take a cue from the consensus of the Florida Keys Wild Dolphin Alliance as to what guidelines might actually work in this area.

In Hawaii, while a significant portion of dolphin tour operators run afternoon trips (during prime dolphin resting hours), dolphin-watching Ocean Joy Cruises, eager to sign on to NOAA's program, advertises being on the water, with dedicated dolphin-focused time, from 8am until 7:30pm, all day long.

As spinner dolphins (the dolphins targeted by "Ocean Joy") are nocturnal and sleep during the day (as reported on NOAA's Hawaiian Spinner Dolphin site), visiting them all the day long hours (especially mid-day) would NOT seem to be a "dolphin smart" practice.

Perhaps the two greatest ironies in NOAA's Hawaii effort are that 1) NOAA's chief concern is that "repeated disturbances and diminishing availability of adequate resting habitat may lower dolphin population levels and harm individual animals (through reductions in foraging efficiency, predator avoidance, and reproductive fitness)."

However, NOAA's solution is centered on "swimming with dolphins" and suggests to go swim with captive dolphins as the answer to vessel-based traffic in Hawaii.

Vessel congestion (repeated disturbances) or harmful techniques (leapfrogging, loud engines, circling) are not even acknowledged, while the webpage linked in the paragraph above spins off as if an info-mercial to blatantly promote the use of dolphins in captivity.

"Don't swim with dolphins in the wild, but do take them from homes and families, and put them in tanks for humans to swim with dolphins there." Not to mention the attacks on people by captive dolphins - very rare in the wild, never in Hawaii.

Moreover, dolphin-watching boats regularly encourage energetic aerial activities and bow-riding to delight their guests (remember these dolphins are supposed to be sleeping during the day), while swim-with boats ideally prefer calm laid-back dolphins to slip into the water near. It would seem that switching swimming-with to boat-based dolphin watching is not singularly advantageous, will not significantly reduce congestion problems, nor is it the solution proposed by the resident communities or stakeholders for these particular dolphins.

And 2) over 90% of swim-with-dolphin tourists on Oahu are coming from Japan and will probably never be exposed to (or perhaps care about) if operators are deemed "Dolphin Smart" by NOAA, or any other US-based standard.

But then again, even a six year old can see when things are Just Not Right.

Dolphin Smart in Hawaii? Part 2 of the Dolphin Smart Series

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