Desperation + Exploitation = DAT

By William Rossiter

Do you know of anyone who might be thinking of trying Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT)? If so, please ask them to read this before they put any money down. CSI will be pleased to send a virtual library exposing DAT to anyone who asks. If someone already has experience with DAT we'd like to hear about it, because if there is patient follow-up it's not reported by the industry. We also want to know where DAT is promoted, for example, by package tour companies or cruise lines.

DAT is not a proven therapy for human ailments, but it can be an extremely profitable way to fleece desperate people, and an abominable exploitation of captive dolphins. DAT eventually may be proven about as effective as many other animal-assisted therapies, or therapy with anything stimulating enough to engage a patient, but if kittens and puppies work just as well why insist on dolphins? Because the mystique of dolphins provides profits.

DAT is an offshoot of the tragically popular Swim-With-The-Dolphin Programs (SWTD). SWTD programs are everywhere, but unregulated. The U.S. standards were suspended in April, 1999, after intense lobbying by the industry. Think of it this way: If SWTD programs are the only commercialized interaction between humans and potentially dangerous captive animals, and injuries do occur, shouldn't there be some regulations? In structured programs a trainer controls the interaction; the illusion is that the trained dolphins are self-motivated to interact. In unstructured programs many dolphins in one facility actually tried to avoid the swimming humans, an indicator of stress. Without regulations some SWTD facilities are mere holes in the ground, increasing stress, chances of harm to both humans and dolphins, and the risk of infection and parasites. Chlorine is the "solution" to cramming people and dolphins together in a metaphorical closet, but that leads to irritations to eyes and skin. The people can clean up. The dolphins have to live there.

SWTD program at Xcaret, Mexico.
Photo courtesy of Dr. Yolanda Alaniz.

Put aside for a moment all the reasons CSI has for condemning DAT for the dolphins' sake. Just focus on the people with sick or challenged loved ones who somehow find the money to pay exorbitant fees for cleverly promoted cures, promised remedies that in fact cannot be delivered. After a decade of challenges to produce proof, DAT practitioners have yet to produce a peer-reviewed paper that cannot be invalidated because of poor methods or unjustified conclusions. We challenge anyone to show us even a few properly documented cases where the promises of DAT have been delivered. There is no credible scientific evidence for the claims of DAT.

By the time they are besieged with slick DAT advertising, DAT-exploited people have had years of frustrating, exhausting and expensive experiences seeking cures and solutions. It's easy to convince them; they need to believe. They've tried everything else and must keep trying. They don't know and might not even care that there is no proof that DAT can help, so why should DAT practitioners worry about the lack of proof; the paying public is motivated by belief, not fact.

The public's belief is fueled by media testimonials like: "Trapped in a world of silence since birth, a boy recently uttered his first word after three days of 40 minute dolphin therapy sessions, his physician says." No one bothered to report whether the boy's words continued after he got home, or, as should be the case with legitimate therapy, months or years later. But here's where human nature overwhelms logic: If the child never says another word the parents may still treasure the memory of that one moment, reinforcing their emotional and financial investment in a DAT program that did nothing but elicit that one word. They may even respond to a questionnaire that the experience was worth it.

What is DAT therapy worth? It's really a question of what people will pay for hope and belief. One family raised $10,000 for their son's "treatment." Comparative fees were demanded from poorly-educated and poverty-stricken families by a portable DAT program from Venezuela that toured Latin America. That show lathered up the media before arriving, set up a tent, filled a plastic-lined hole in the ground with water and salt, dumped a few dolphins off a truck, lined up the people, and vanished one step ahead of the police. Owners of that company also abandoned two dolphins in a hidden training camp.

DAT customers are not warned that being close to captive dolphins can be dangerous. Dolphin aggression has resulted in threat displays, biting, and ramming hard enough to cause severe bruises and bone fractures. And there is a risk of bacterial, viral, and fungal infections to both dolphins and humans.

While many nations require no rules or standards either for the "therapy" or the care and maintenance of the dolphins, staff and PR specialists are usually well prepared to minimize negative events. In the worst cases out-of-court settlements impose gag orders on harmed people to keep the public believing in the promise.

The purpose of DAT is to make money, not to help people. Entrepreneurs are building so many new facilities all over the world that no one knows how many DAT programs exist. All these places need dolphins, and that fuels the dolphin drives and slaughters in Japan, several wild capture operations, and, as CSI discovered as we traced dolphins bouncing (literally) between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, a bewildering slew of international trades, loans, and shipments. Here's a current sample:

In the United States DAT programs have toned down the hype and almost gone under the table. Slick advertisements seem to have vanished from the web sites of some U.S. facilities. They choose their promotional claims more carefully, making few if any overt claims for cures, but still play up to providing for people with "special needs". Perhaps the constant challenges are having an effect. But people motivated to search can still find information and put their money down.

The Dominican Republic's Ocean World Adventure Aquatic Park in Puerto Plata may have been stopped from importing twelve dolphin survivors of the massacre at Taiji, Japan by the time you read this. CSI joined a massive protest and was one of 43 organizations that asked President Leonel Fernandez to prevent the import, which also was denounced by the Dominican Academy of Sciences.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Toni Frohoff

Croatia's dolphinarium at Vodnjan was denied, thanks to Earth Island Institute's indefatigable Ric O'Barry, who in March helped Animal Friends Croatia with a ministerial and media blitz that provided the expert opinion to support the program "Aquapark yes, Dolphinarium no!" Jasenice, another city in Croatia, had already refused to allow a dolphinarium. The young nation has marine mammal protection laws that prohibit wild captures, an Animal Protection Act, and is a contracting party of the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS). The ACCOBAMS Scientific Committee in 2003 noted that "... 'swim with' and 'dolphin-assisted therapy' (DAT) programmes in controlled environments ... are likely to cause increasing conservation problems to wild cetacean populations through illegal takes and reintroductions."

Turkey recently ignored these authorities and permitted local captures for DAT, even though the Mediterranean bottlenose dolphin subpopulation is listed on the Convention on Migratory Species' Appendix II, and is considered "Vulnerable" under the IUCN Red List criteria. The Black Sea bottlenose dolphin is "Endangered" on the Red List, and has a zero capture quota on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The Bern Convention's Appendix II also lists the bottlenose dolphin, prohibiting "all forms of deliberate capture and keeping".

Panama may go either way: Outside entrepreneurs calling themselves "Ocean Embassy" are trying to convince the government to weaken marine mammal protection laws to allow for local captures, captive display, and DAT programs. Local and international organizations have intervened with the economic realities, and the warnings by international authorities, directly to the government. Panamanian officials have been shown that Ocean Embassy's vacuous and profiteering proposal will harm their nation's reputation as a regional leader in environmental protection, and that the bulk of the profits would do nothing for local communities. Eco-tourism built around dolphin-watching would vanish with the local dolphins learning to fear boats. Some dolphins would be injured or killed, their social groups might be irrevocably disrupted, babies might be separated from mothers, and groups might be chased from essential habitats. Ocean Embassy even wants to start capture operations before their "study" of the local dolphin populations begins! In over two decades of CSI's experience funding projects in Latin America we've never seen a more sloppy and amateurish "study" than Ocean Embassy proposes.

But, amid rumors that a very influential person wants a DAT program because he believes it will help his disadvantaged child, "Ocean Embassy" may win out.

Appropriate studies are mandatory, at a minimum to inform authorities about the impact of the captures on populations. The IUCN/SSC Cetacean Specialist Group 2002-2010 Conservation Action Plan for the World's Cetaceans warns that: "Removal of live cetaceans from the wild, for captive display and/or research, is equivalent to incidental or deliberate killing, as the animals brought into captivity (or killed during capture operations) are no longer available to help maintain their populations. When unmanaged and undertaken without a rigorous program of research and monitoring, live-capture can become a serious threat to local cetacean populations."

Chile and Costa Rica also are examples where very influential people supported DAT because they believed their loved ones might "benefit" directly from DAT, of course as emphasized by slick promoters. Both nations remain DAT free because these people learned the truth from a coalition of national organizations and international experts. DAT has entered other nations because powerful profiteering and corruption simply overwhelmed governments, laws, science, and conservation.

DAT survives because of the profits to be made from exploiting people's beliefs. Few involved question exploiting the dolphins, but people need to believe there is something special, even magical about dolphins, such as the scientifically refuted ability to heal with ultrasound. They must believe that a dolphin is there for them because it wants to help humans, ignoring that it was ripped from its family to spend its shortened life in a water-filled closet. CSI has a lot to say about the tragedy of dolphins in captivity, but the realities can't compete with the dolphin mystique.

What can you do? Just ask anyone thinking of using a DAT or SWTD program to at least read this article. We will be happy to provide a virtual library on the issue to anyone with an interest.