By Helene O'Barry
'For food and just a little love, she will do anything.'
Armando, dolphin trainer, Cuba
Finally, the truth! It was a hot day in the spring of 1997. Ric O'Barry and I were sitting at an outdoor table at a captive dolphin swim program in Veradero, Cuba, a popular tourist destination for European and South American holidaymakers. Across the table were dolphin trainer Armando and his Swiss wife Heidi.
Armando, a native Cuban, has more than 14 years of experience in dolphin training, including working with military dolphins when the Russians were still in Cuba. He is now teaching Heidi to become a professional dolphin trainer.
Ric and I were in Cuba to research ways of stopping the traffic in Cuban dolphins. We found it very difficult to camouflage our dismay at the sight of seven bottlenose dolphins languishing before us in a small and shallow tide pool, with no access to the sea and no shade from the hot sun.
Thinking we were just another couple of tourists, sitting in the shade of a coconut tree, Armando and Heidi were very candid and anxious to talk with any outsiders interested in their work and lives in Cuba.
During our conversation Armando and Heidi frequently expressed frustration with living in captivity in Cuba, Armando not being allowed to leave the island. They found their lack of freedom totally unacceptable, and rightfully so. It is ironic how they would talk compassionately about their own sufferings as a result of a controlling government, and yet fail to see that in their daily work they were imposing the very same control and restrictions upon the dolphins.
Ric and other former dolphin trainers have often informed the public about food deprivation used as a method to control captive dolphins, and now we finally heard it from the captivity industry that usually tries to make the public believe captive dolphins perform because they like it. More than willing to answer our questions about the methods used in training dolphins, Armando and Heidi told us the story of captive dolphins performing, not for fun, but for food.
Q: Isn't it difficult to train dolphins to do tricks?
Armando: No, it is quite simple. If I punish the dolphins when they don't pay attention to me, they get the message.
Q: What do you mean by punish?
Armando: There are different levels of punishing dolphins. When a dolphin cooperates during training and does what I ask him to, I blow my whistle and reward him by feeding him properly. But if he refuses to do the trick right, I tell him: 'No, come on, that's not right!' I turn my back on him and don't give him any food. Another way of punishing the dolphin is to give him some food, but not what he is expecting. For example, I cut the fish in different sizes and quality. This gives me the choice of feeding the dolphins good meat, medium meat, or bad meat. The bad meat is the fish head. I know the dolphin really hopes for a piece of sweet meat, so when I want to punish him I tell him 'no' and give him the fish head. If the dolphin continues to do the trick wrong, I tell him 'no' once more and give him the hand signal for 'bad.' He gets no more food. If, on the other hand, he does the trick right; great, I feed him. I thereby let him know he did something good -- and next time he'll do exactly what I want.
Q: Can't you feed the hungry dolphin even if he doesn't do the trick right?
Heidi: No. If you feed the dolphins when they're fooling around or won't do the trick, they'll think: 'Ha, I fool around and she gives me food.' The dolphins test your limits constantly. Sometimes they'll swim right up to you, opening their mouths: 'Feed me!' If you accept this behavior and feed them, they'll think: 'Hey, she accepts that.' The training sessions will get totally out of hand because the animals feel no respect for you whatsoever.
Armando: Simply loving the animals is not enough to make them perform. These guys play games with you. They're watching you all the time and challenge you whenever they get a chance. This is when you have to say 'No way! You do what I say. Stop fooling around.' You have to understand, dolphins are very smart animals. If you accept a bad performance just once, next time the dolphins will start training you.
Heidi: Sometimes you might feel, well, not exactly pity for the dolphins but something like, 'I know you're hungry and I want to give you food.' But if you want to be a good dolphin trainer you must remember that training-time is not a time for love or play. You must prove to the dolphins that you are stronger than them, because without discipline you lose control.
Armando: The method used to train dolphins is indeed very strict, like the military method used in training soldiers. Captive dolphins are exposed to a lot of stress as a result of it. They release their stress through depression, aggression, or sexual activity.
As a dolphin trainer, my job is to find the right balance: I have to know when it's time to let go of the discipline a little and allow the dolphins to release some of their stress, and when it's time to say, 'Stop it, no fooling around.' You see, people who come here have certain expectations. They want to swim with the dolphins, touch them, ride them by their dorsal fins, and watch them do tricks. If a dolphin is depressed or behaves aggressively, I can't make him interact with the people in the water. As a dolphin trainer you need only one depressed or aggressive dolphin to make your life miserable.
Q: What happens if you train the dolphins when they are not hungry?
Armando: If the dolphins aren't hungry, you can forget about making them jump for you! This is how it works: When the dolphin is really hungry and I hold a fish up high, he'll jump to get the fish. If he is not hungry he'll just open his mouth and look at me: 'Come on human, I have my mouth open, give me the fish!' But I don't give it to him, of course. If I do he'll loose respect for me. It's a mind game, really.
Heidi: Sometimes the dolphins know perfectly well what you want them to do, but they just won't do it. Instead, they come towards you, waving their pectoral fins, giving you a big smile: 'I want a fish.' This is when you have to say 'No!'
Armando: You have to use discipline. When the dolphins don't pay attention to me during training -- if for instance they are fighting among themselves or showing off like macho guys -- I simply take the bucket of fish and tell them, 'Have a nice day.'
Heidi: You then wait 10-15 minutes and try again. If they continue to fool around, you turn your back on them and say, 'So you don't want the food?'
Q: And that makes them cooperate?
Armando: Oh yes. If I take the fish away from the dolphins and leave the feeding platform up to 15 minutes, they'll have changed completely when I return. They now pay attention to me. I can give you a very good example with a dolphin called Kristina. If one day during training she challenges me by hitting the ball with her tail instead of her snout as I told her to, I take the bucket of fish and say, 'See you later.' When I return, she'll do the trick right, because she loves to eat. She is a wonderful worker. For food and just a little love she will do anything.
Q: So basically you control the dolphins with food?
Armando: Yes.
Heidi: After all, what they want is the food. The bottom line is, they have to eat.
Our conversation ended when a group of European tourists arrived to participate in the captive dolphin swim program. During the next 20 minutes, we cringed as the tourists rode the dolphins by their dorsal fins. Little did these people know about the daily acts of dominance imposed on these truly wonderful creatures in order that an endless line of people can obtain what the dolphin captivity industry markets as a 'life enhancing dolphin-experience.'
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