What we perceive as dolphin "tricks” may just be the natural behaviour of this fascinating mammal.
It was a hot, bright morning in Dubai, and we were in its Dolphinarium, watching the dolphin show. Up front, in a large pool with a lurid backdrop of swirling seaweeds and shells painted upon a blue wall, the trainer, Marsha, was making a bunch of dolphins and seals do tricks. “Why subject these animals to such training?” I sighed, “do we really want to see them catch a ball with their flippers, or do a back flip through a hoop?” Just then, the trainer threw a big ball to some seals, and the seal muffed the catch. The ball fell into the water, and before we knew it, one of the bottlenose dolphins in the pool threw the ball back to the trainer with unerring accuracy. This one unrehearsed action in an otherwise choreographed programme intrigued me. Why did the dolphin catch and throw back the errant ball? Was it to save her trainer the trouble of jumping in? Or did she just want to play with the ball?
“How cute!” trilled a young mum, as she watched this exchange, “the dolphin’s being so helpful!” A quiet voice muttered behind me: “The dolphin’s not being cute — it’s showing us how pitifully little we humans know about it!” I turned around to see Alexander Zanin, the Ukrainian head trainer at the Dolphinarium, who’s worked with marine mammals for the last 38 years. “After all these years of working with dolphins, I still can’t say what made her throw the ball to Marsha…but it sure wasn’t good old anthropomorphic ‘cuteness’,” he grinned.
As the dolphins and seals danced gracefully, leapt out of the water in perfect synchronisation and playfully threw a beach ball over and over again at the spectators, I asked Zanin the one question that was troubling me. How could he, an academic research scientist, train these beautiful marine mammals to do such inane things? Zanin rebutted with enthusiasm. First, said he, many of the so-called ‘tricks’ (like jumping out of the water and swimming with their trainers) were natural dolphin behaviours that were showcased in the show. “Secondly, and more importantly, I believe that dolphin shows such as the one at the Dubai Dolphinarium aren’t just about the entertainment, even though they are hugely entertaining,” said he. Dolphins in captivity enable researchers to understand facets of cetacean behaviour. Unlike many terrestrial species that have been studied and domesticated for centuries, the in-depth study of living marine mammals really goes back only a few decades. “Dolphins are so amazingly intelligent, but we still haven’t learnt all that they can do,” said Zanin. So training them for dolphin shows achieves many purposes — it helps scientists study their behaviour, raises funds as well as awareness in the minds of the viewing public.
Dolphins are naturally very playful and curious creatures — endearing traits that have often proved quite fatal for them. They tend to swim besides boats and ships, sometimes getting killed by the propellers, sometimes hunted for their meat. Also, since tuna and dolphins follow the same routes, dolphins get caught in the nets meant for tuna. As a result, while bottlenose dolphins are not endangered species yet, they could be — and soon. “Through our dolphin show, we can enable people to become aware of the diversity of life around them and in the oceans, and our planet will become a better place to live in!” said Zanin. Maybe, said he, when people saw what lovable creatures dolphins were, they’d understand the significance of choosing tuna labelled “Dolphin Safe”…
Lovable as they are, training dolphins takes a lot of time. “Much of their learning comes from play,” explained Zanin. In the wild they learn to hunt and defend themselves through play with siblings. In captivity, dolphins are taught using ‘reinforcers’ — fish, toys, rubdowns or other touch, swimming with a trainer, or even learning a new behaviour — treats given to reward the animal for good behaviour. And when a dolphin under training does something wrong, Zanin and his team uses the LRS method (least reinforcement scenario), which simply means that they just ignore the animal for three seconds. For the trainer, the biggest battle is establishing trust with the dolphin. “Training is always one-on-one. Each trainer is made responsible for one dolphin,” said he. Like any other intense interpersonal relationship, the one between the trainer and his dolphin depends upon the depth of understanding between them, with both doing things to please each other. “We try and figure out what reinforcers the dolphin likes — hula hoops, balls, ice or fish, and use them to motivate the animal,” said he.
Using nothing more than reinforcers, simple hand signals and a whistle, Zanin and his team have trained their dolphins to paint pictures, play catch, jump six to eight feet above water and more. “Each new behaviour they learn, demonstrates facts about their intelligence,” said he, “like we can see how dolphins mimic us, categorise objects and actually seem to apply a learnt behaviour in different contexts…so when the dolphin threw back the fallen ball to the trainer, maybe she was just applying some old learning to the situation!”
Or maybe because the other dolphin asked it to, I suggested. Zanin, who’s long researched how dolphins communicate, and has hypothesised that they have their own language, didn’t pooh-pooh my idea. “The ocean and its inhabitants are still, after all these years, uncharted territory,” said Zanin, “who knows? I believe that they speak to one another, maybe they are talking about us when we’re watching them jump through hoops... sometimes when I’m with the dolphins, I imagine this is what interacting with extra terrestrial beings would be like...”
