I've heard mixed reviews about swimming with the Dolphins in the DR. Can anyone give a little insight. I heard that the area was so tiny and that it wasn't really an encounter. My kids are 7 and 10. Any advise or opinions would be greatly appreciated!

I would ask you to please reconsider the dolphin swim. They are incredibly cruel. I did it once and was sorry ever since. No matter how clean or nice it looks, more than half of the dolphins die within 60 to 90 days of capture.
In order to make an informed decision, please visit:

http://dolphinproject.org/

http://www.hsus.org/ace/11727

(The second site is the Humane Society of the United States' position on SWTD programs.)

My advice?
Don't do it.
Would you support a garment manufacturer that employed and abused pre-teen workers?
Not much difference between the two from an ethical standpoint IMO.

I agree with the above posts. Please reconsider this type of tourist attraction. The conditions these animals are forced to endure and work in are sub standard at best. Please don't insult "their" intelligence.

I also agree with the other posters. It doens't matter how nice it looks. Please reconsider.

check oout this web site
http://www.freethedolphins.org/facts...h_dolphins.htm

Dolphins are free-roaming wild mammals. The captive dolphin capatalistic ventures are for money-making enterprises only. They capture wild dolphins as more and more people pay money to see these wild creatures do things only to obtain food. Everything you see dolphins do for "entertainment" while under captivity, they do in the wild. That's right: leaping high into the air, doing several flips, then entering the water without a splash; walking backwards on their tails; hitting the water with their flippers; etc. The wild dolphin pod is a very complex social system, where baby dolphins must be with their mothers for at least 3 years before they totally understand the cooperative efforts to find food and to avoid shark attacks. Captive dolphins do not perform "tricks" for tourists to make them laugh; they perform only for food. Being higher-level cognitive processing mammals, like apes and dogs, they suffer from depression and live less longer than those living in the wild. By paying money to see captive dolphins, you are promoting the continued indiscriminate capture of adult dolphins, including mothers, leaving the babies and juveniles to somehow fend for themselves in the complex social pod structure and increasing their chances of becoming prey to sharks. Robert

check out this web site
http://stormcarib.com/reports/2003/antigua.shtml

you will find a posting there on an
article from Antigua where friends of the dolphins just won a court case stopping the owners of Fantaseas from capturing wild dolphin in the Antiguan waters for their swim with dolphin show
YES@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ttt

I have looked at a couple of the links posted and it is a sad situation. I have seen other pictures of the massacres in Japan and the water filled with blood.

I agree with all other posters that the swim with dolphins is cruel. I had no idea that they died so quickly in captivity. That said, does it make Sea World and the likes any better?

It's amazing how dolphin researchers are uncovering just how complex the communication and social make up of a pod structure is. It adds further proof that their wholesale capture is almost immoral. They now compare the dolphin brain weight to that of their body, and the ratio places them at the top of the intelligencia stratum for animals. They've also wondered why mother dolphins, immediately after giving birth, spend days constantly whistling and gackling around their newborns. At first they thought this behavior was some type of instinctual, knee-jerk reflex with no apparent purpose. Now, they've proven that the mothers intentionally do this to formally teach their babies to know their "signature" call well, so the newborn can differentiate between its own mother's call and the calls made by other pod members. The baby dolphins would perish without their mother's warnings and calls to stick with them. Just thinking about a someone capturing a free-roaming, wild mother dolphin, and placing it away from her calf in a captive environment for tourists to pay money to watch it perform for food is bordering on immorality. Robert

Hi all,

I agree with the notion that capturing dolphins for our pleasure is cruel. In addiiton I have a real problem with zoos. Obviously some are better or worse than others and some seem to be beneficial as educational institutions.

I'm not sure that banning zoos would be a good idea anymore than banning these dolphin encounter places.

Someone mentioned Sea World and how they fit into this situation.

I was so depressed after visiting the zoo at Hershey Park a few years ago. The poor bears walking back and forth and back and forth, or the leopard staring into the corner of it's concrete cage were very disturbing. On top of that they had a sea lion and dolphin show which took place in a pool smaller than the one in my sister's back yard!

But we need zoos for a lot of reasons but how and where should the line be drawn?

mm

MM; Zoos are mostly unchanging in number, whereas Dolphin business ventures can pop up on every caribbean island faster than Chicken Delights. It's best to end the practice through education of the public and political means, which is presently happening. Robert

I won't do the dolphin swim/encounter either, for the reasons already mentioned.

Re: Sea World, zoos and such, I have one thought to add and that is that though they still capture wild dolphins and that is wrong, such facilities might play a part in increasing understanding of dolphins and interest in saving them as a a species. I'm thinking a fair number of people that go to Sea World or a zoo and learn about and see dolphins are going to care more about saving the species than someone who has never gone, are going to pressure their gov't to do something about cruelty to them, are going to buy only dolphin-safe tuna thus pressuring the commercial fishing industry, etc.

Maybe.

That said, the only way I will see dolphins is to get out on a boat and look for them...and in Jamaica they always seem to find us.

THAT is magic....a pod of dolphins swimming around and under your little boat, coming close enough to touch, just because they want to play. I LOVE that.

Liza Point taken about Sea World, Zoos and the like. I would certainly hope that their objectives would be for conservation and education. Also would hope that they try to make their capture as stress free as possible.

It wasn't a point as much as a thought...and I think the reason people that love these animals can justify working with them in captivity.

Here's the Humane Society take on SWD programs:

Why You Shouldn't Swim with the Dolphins

They don't like it, and you could be hurt. By nature, dolphins are unsuited for captivity, and our desire to swim with them only contributes to their suffering. Dolphins forced to swim with humans have demonstrated agitated and aggressive behavior during these forced interactions.

Swim with the dolphin (SWTD) programs have become increasingly popular; 18 facilities offer this activity in the United States. By contrast, the Caribbean has seen a giant increase in the construction and operation of SWTD facilities in the past decade. Existing or planned SWTD facilities are already in many Caribbean nations, including the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Jamaica.

Many of the customers who visit these programs in the Caribbean are Americans. Because U.S. facilities usually have greater financial resources, meet minimum standards for care and maintenance, and are often considered "state of the art," many Americans have enjoyed the fantasy of connecting with these wonderful creatures, and have therefore sought out SWTD facilities in other areas in the world. However, playing into these fantasies causes great harm.

The very nature of dolphins makes them unsuited to confinement. In the wild, dolphins live in large groups or pods, often in tight family units. Social bonds often last for many years. In some species, they last for a lifetime.

The sea is to dolphins what the air is to birds—a three-dimensional environment where they move up and down and side to side. Dolphins are always swimming, even when "asleep," and they are always conscious. You can imagine the tragedy of keeping these ocean creatures in captivity. Unfortunately, Americans who love dolphins are unwittingly contributing to the animals' inhumane treatment.

Many foreign SWTD facilities acquire or plan to acquire their dolphins from wild captures. Mexico recently enacted a moratorium on wild dolphin captures, which came after a widely publicized and poorly executed capture in December 2000 in which several dolphins were left bruised and bleeding. In fact, one dolphin died five weeks later after being wrested from her home in Magdalena Bay, Baja, California, and put in a pen in La Paz, Mexico. Japan captures dolphins in brutal drive fisheries, where pods of dolphins are herded to shore using boats and loud noise. A select few are sold to dolphin exhibits in Asia and the South Pacific; the rest are slaughtered for their meat.

SWTD programs also pose risks for the swimmers. Dolphins in SWTD programs have demonstrated agitated and aggressive behavior during forced interactions. These behaviors have resulted in serious physical injury to swimmers, including lacerations, tooth rakes, internal injuries, broken bones, and shock.

The Humane Society of the United States opposes the capture of all marine mammals from the wild for any type of public display or entertainment. We believe SWTD programs, even under strict regulation, pose an immediate threat to the safety of human and dolphin participants. For more information about captive marine mammals, call 202-452-1100; or write The HSUS, 2100 L Street NW, Washington, D.C., 20037 and ask for our book, The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity.

http://www.hsus.org/press_and_public..._dolphins.html

Wow, I think the link forced this page to go so wide....I wish I could edit it, sorry!!