Sugarloaf -- What Really Happened?

By Richard O'Barry

Everybody involved in what I call 'the Sugarloaf disaster' has a different story about what really happened. I look back even now and shake my head in amazement. How could such a perfect idea go so perfectly wrong? We had the dolphins, we had the mission, the place to do it, we had the staff and we had the know-how. It couldn't fail, and yet it did.

This goes back to the early 1990s and an idealistic effort to free a pair of dolphins -- Bogie & Bacall -- from Ocean Reef Club, a private community on Key Largo in the Florida Keys. A third dolphin with them, Mollie, was also included. It should have been a piece of cake, getting the dolphins, because the law was on our side. According to the law, dolphins may be displayed for the public, but not in private. The rationale is that displaying dolphins like this is educational. So I thought it would be just a matter of pointing this out to officials at Ocean Reef Club. When that fell on deaf ears, I thought it would be just a matter of pointing it out to officials in Washington.

But nothing we said got through.

We staged a rousing campaign for the dolphins' release and finally won. Now we needed a place to put them. We checked around and selected Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary in the Lower Keys, then moved in with the three dolphins. About that time, the US Navy decided to disband its 100 or so dolphins of war, we got together with the Humane Society of the US, and the Navy allotted us three of their dolphins: Jake, Luther and Buck.

Then when everything seemed perfect, suddenly it began hitting the fan. The dolphins were all doing just fine. They were on track for release. But the people! Suddenly we were having meetings just to iron out problems with each other on the staff. As I told the staff more than once, 'The world is watching what we do here.' And yet now it seemed as if nearly everybody had forgotten why we were there. I knew why I was there. I was there because I had freed dolphins in the past--a dozen dolphins--and I was the only one who had. I knew what freeing a dolphin was all about and how it had to be done.

Now it doesn't take many people to start a mutiny. One is enough if he talks all the time and if self-interest is involved. And so very soon, our mission to free dolphins became a comic soap opera in the media over most of Florida, ending just as we released two of the Navy dolphins with federal, state and local lawmen descending on us by air, sea and land. They cited two of us, Lloyd A. Good III, director of the sanctuary, and I with federal civil charges that were adjudicated earlier this year.

After a five-day trial, we were found guilty of freeing dolphins without a permit and assessed hefty fines. But we had our say in federal court before the Honorable Peter A. Fitzpatrick in Key West. It was the end of a nightmare. And yet I remember the good times, too, the laughter of a bunch of friends, the excitement of being on a campaign trail, the magic of Sharman the Shaman, real freedom for two of the dolphins and finding the love of my life. It was a disaster, yes, but a memorable one, and the subject of my book, To Free a Dolphin, published in September 2000.

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The article below was written by award-winning journalist David Higgs. It appeared in the Sunday Independent January 19, 1997:

UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF 'DOLPHIN-GATE'

'She swam over to me. I put my arms around her and she took a breath, looked me in the eye and never took another.' With tears in his eyes American dolphin freedom campaigner Ric O'Barry today still describes the death of the bottle-nose dolphin Kathy, “star of the hit TV series Flipper, as if it only happened yesterday. As the show’s chief trainer and Kathy’s closest companion, it was a pivotal event which 26 years ago changed his life forever.

“I realised then that dolphins didn’t belong in captivity,” he says. Now he is the scourge of the captive dolphin industry. In 1971 he founded the Dolphin Project Inc., a non-profit international organisation dedicated to marine mammal welfare, and the rehabilitation and return of captive dolphins to the sea.

Always a controversial figure, O’Barry has been arrested many times in the USA for protests at marine parks and for freeing dolphins. He is also a very brave man. In one year alone he was taken into custody on seven occasions.

To date he has formally released, not including covert operations, over a dozen dolphins to the wild. Described as a “fanatic” and an “irresponsible egotist” by some, his determination to expose what he sees as the hypocrisy and ineptitude of US Government agencies tasked with dolphin protection both in the wild and in captivity has ensured that he has many enemies.

In 1992 he given the unique invitation to present a testimony on cetacean welfare to the US House of Representatives. In it he called on Congress to investigate key US Government agencies responsible for marine mammal protection, accusing them of imperilling the very animals they were charged to safeguard. These included the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

However, none of his work has attracted as much international attention and criticism as the clandestine release of two Atlantic bottle-nose dolphins, Buck and Luther, last year. Their subsequent “rescue” and recapture, followed by seizure of a third, called Jake, by a posse of armed US Navy, NMFS, and other special agents days later at a cost of £1 million is staggering. But the accompanying saga of official misinformation and “smoke screens” surrounding the latter operation has prompted some to dub this “The Dolphin-gate Conspiracy”.

Certainly, these were no ordinary dolphins. Their training had been top secret. In Navy terms they were classified as “Advanced Biological Weapons Systems”. They were, in fact, “soldier” dolphins, trained by the US Navy to follow a sonic recall device or “pinger”, detect explosives, locate lost torpedoes, guard nuclear submarines and possibly even kill divers.

Moreover, they were the strangest and most frightened dolphins I have ever met. I swam with all three to take underwater photographs in their lagoon. This was no big deal. I have swum with wild and rehabilitated dolphins on several occasions. Swimming with these was a shock. They charged at me, “jaw popping” (a type of threat behaviour) in my face, and spun violently beneath my fins in an intimidatory display of bluff. However, I have no doubt that in the open sea they would have fled. O’Barry alleges that this was the direct result of their Navy experiences, saying, “They have been used and abused by the military to point where they are dysfunctional.”

It was the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s which brought an abrupt reduction in funding for the US Navy's 30-year-old dolphin warfare training programme. In early 1994 they announced that 25 of its 101 bottlenose dolphins were surplus to requirement. They were to be offered them free to suitable marine parks and aquaria, the Navy providing all necessary transport to their destinations. When the Dolphin Project and a consortium of other animal welfare groups including the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) also applied, they were turned down flat. The US Navy, having spent $500,000 in 1991 to determine that the cost of returning them to the wild was ‘too high’, declared that the proposed rehabilitation and release programme was 'not in the best interest of the dolphins'. Predictably, the Navy was accused of discrimination and a bitter public and media row erupted.

The intervention of a sympathetic and influential congressman temporarily won victory for the freedom lobby. On 30th Nov.1994 Buck, Luther and Jake were flown from their 10mx10mx3m deep compounds in San Diego harbour to the Boca Chica Naval Air Station in the Florida Keys. From there it was a 50km drive to the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary, the largest open water facility for captive dolphins in the USA.

O'Barry decided that the two youngest dolphins, Buck and Luther, would be released first. For several months their diet had consisted exclusively of live mullet, the same as those they would hunt in the wild. By May there was no doubt they were extremely adept at using their sonar to catch fish.

Two weeks before the proposed release date, blood test results declared both Buck and Luther fit and healthy and devoid of harmful pathogens. Both were easily recognisable by markings on their dorsal fins; a heart for Buck, a star for Luther.

Buck and Luther were spirited from the sanctuary just in time, on April 23. After a

journey of little over 2 hours the release boat came to a halt, rocking gently in crystal clear water. Shoals of mullet were plentiful. It was prime dolphin territory.

At 11.30 a.m. Buck slid into the water. He swam around the boat as if waiting for his companion, who joined him half a minute later. In a flash they were gone, back into the Gulf of Mexico from which they had been snatched some 9 years before.

It was a brief and joyous moment, O'Barry raising his fists in triumph and defiance. However, it was all vastly premature. The efforts at low-key preparations had been well justified. As they had left the lagoon, someone opposed to the release raised the alarm and NMFS agents were contacted. Soon officials from the Marine Mammal Conservancy, trainers from a nearby marine park called the Dolphin Research Centre (DRC), NMFS and Navy had combined in al most extra-ordinary alliance to find and seize the dolphins. Even as the dory had set off to the proposed release point 12 miles west of Key West, a spy plane was airborne.

Within 10 days both, apparently of their own accord, had swum right into the arms of their captors, Luther into a Boca Chica Naval base and Buck into a DRC marine amusement park. It was all uneasily convenient but no-one, not even the press, seemed remotely suspicious. On 7th June a posse of armed police, special agents and DRC dolphin trainers descended on Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary and Jake too was taken. By the evening of Friday 14th June they were flown back to the Navy’s 10mx10mx3m deep pens in San Diego harbour being fed dead fish, in water that only months previously had been described by HSUS whale expert, Dr.Naomi Rose, as 'fetid, disgusting, a cesspool'.

NMFS accused O’Barry of releasing dolphins illegally. However, no such law existed. Three months after the incident he remains uncharged. Curiously, however, a new law applying to this offence has just appeared in the statutes.

It is claimed the dolphins were released without veterinary checks yet the sanctuary presented “clear” results to NMFS days before recapture took place. 'The dolphins have not been released to home waters,' complained NMFS and could 'wreak havoc with the genetic make-up of Florida dolphins'. In fact, Buck and Luke has simply been released into another location within the same Gulf of Mexico as they had originally been captured. It is interesting to note that, in the past at least 9 of the Navy's Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have escaped into the Pacific, a discrete dolphin gene pool, one as recently as 1992. On these occasions recapture was not even attempted.

However, in this case within 24 hours of the release a NMFS recapture team was on stand-by. Local newspapers quoted a NMFS spokesman expressing serious doubts over the ability of the newly released animals to catch fish, despite detailed eye-witness accounts to the contrary. The local press even published a NMFS free-phone number asking for sightings. The dolphins’ fate was sealed.

The most damning piece of evidence in favour of the 'sabotage theory' was the use of a Navy dolphin 'recall device' or 'pinger' in the later capture of Buck and Jake. A 'pinger' was seen on board a boat used in the capture of Luther but no-one witnessed its use. However, on Saturday 8th June journalist Shaney Frey visited the DRC.

'I talked with a senior member of staff. She was startled and flustered when I asked directly if they used the Navy recall pinger to catch Buck. Finally she said yes.'

Most incredible of all now is the estimate that at least $1 million dollars was spent by the US Navy and NMFS in recapturing and flying them back to San Diego, money which they are demanding should be repaid by O'Barry. One can appreciate NMFS’s actions in that to have ignored O’Barry’s open defiance would have seriously undermined their authority. However, with such extravagant use of manpower and resources, it is tempting to wonder if somewhere in the background the American captive industry wielded its considerable influence and reaped its revenge.

Surprisingly, O'Barry is as optimistic. 'This issue is as much about people as it is about animals. We have to get away from our utilitarian perspective on Nature and animals in captivity dying to amuse us. This is bad education. Our children need to see us making every attempt, even if we fail, to release these dolphins back into the wild.'

END

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The article below, published in the Palm Beach Post, is my own account of why the release of Luther and Buck, two former US dolphins of war, went wrong:

Dolphins’ Jailers Created Crisis To Get Them Back

The Palm Beach Post, August 3 1996

By RICHARD O’BARRY

On May 23, 1 and a team of trained helpers released two captive male bottlenose dolphins, Luther and Buck, from the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary into their natural habitat, the sea. Since then, I have been branded a careless activist who plopped two unprepared dolphins into a hostile environment, endangering the welfare of these animals and the local dolphin population in general, most recently by the Post Opinion article “Why Buck and Luther should never have been freed.”

Not true.

On the contrary, Luther and Buck were released only after 18 months of hard work and careful attention to protocols I have established in successfully readapting more than a dozen dolphins to the wild since 1971. They were in my legal custody, having been transferred to me by the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary, so this was no illegal “kidnapping.”

At the time of their release, Luther and Buck had been catching their own live food for several months in well-documented observations and had been declared pathogen-free by a marine mammal veterinarian and the University of Miami lab. In my opinion, they were ready in every way to reestablish social ties with other dolphins. In fact, I determined that a third dolphin, Jake, had been too traumatized by his training in the U.S. Navy to be a candidate for release, and so allowed him to remain at the Sugarloaf sanctuary in retirement.

Buck and Luther’s progress would have been observed and recorded over a period of time, as they had been painlessly freeze-branded for future identification.

Instead, the National Marine Fisheries Service, working together with the captivity industry, manufactured an emergency so they could engineer a recapture of the dolphins for political reasons, saying they were a danger to the wild population, that Luther was injured and thin and that the two were still exhibiting behaviors of trained dolphins. Luther’s injury was a simple rake mark common to wild dolphins. They were thin because they were eating a normal diet, not the unnatural diet of fatty herring to which captive dolphins become addicted.

The behaviors they were exhibiting were reestablished by dolphin trainers who lured Luther and Buck with a device known as a “recall pinger.” Our effort to free Buck and Luther was sabotaged by the captivity industry and their errand boy, the National Marine Fisheries Service, an agency under the control of the US Department of Commerce. The argument that Buck and Luther’s breeding with dolphins in the Keys would weaken the gene pool is preposterous.

Luther, Buck and Jake, captured in the late 1980s, were given to the sanctuary by the U.S. Navy, which had trained them to kill enemy divers with an obscene device called “the swimmer nullification system,” which is placed on the dolphin’s snout and discharges a .45-caliber bullet. The recoil of the charge can break their jawbone -- as I believed happened to Buck, who had obviously been abused during his Navy years. After the end of the Cold War, the program was cancelled, making some of the 100 dolphins available to marine parks and other organizations, such as the sanctuary.

As the former trainer of the five dolphins that portrayed Flipper in the 1960s television series, I am an expert in training dolphins to perform “behaviors.” Later, I came to believe that keeping these creatures in concrete pools, making them perform what are basically no more than circus tricks, is against nature. The marine-park industry has labeled me an “activist,” proclaiming that the re-adaptation of dolphins and whales would take years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, thus extending captivity and perpetuating their care-taking jobs indefinitely. While not all dolphins have the ability to be released, my experience shows it can be done in less time and cost by qualified individuals.

As a final insult to the dolphins, on June 7, an army of federal marshals and agents from the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Monroe County Sheriffs Department, the Florida Marine Patrol, other law-enforcement officials and members of the captive industry stormed the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary. They dragged Jake, kicking and screaming like some AWOL sailor, from his placid lagoon, the largest body of natural seawater of any facility in America, back into the Navy, where he is now confined to a 30-foot-by-30-foot pen, leaving his female mate, Molly, in isolation.

END

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Witness to a Dolphin Tragedy

By Shaney Frey, 1996

Controlled excitement electrified the Sugarloaf dolphin sanctuary. Spirits were high, but still this was a serious undertaking. Six captive dolphins were to be offered freedom. Today, two years later, only the two of six are free. Four have been confiscated by the government, and the sanctuary is no more. How did it go wrong?

The first three Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, females Molly, Bogie, and Bacall, arrived at the newly formed Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary. It was a day of hard work and high hopes fueled by the conviction that for the first time in the lives of these dolphins, we humans were going to do the right thing. The three females settled in the large lagoon and in the following days gradually learned that they were not required to perform for their food. The sanctuary awaited the arrival of three male US Navy dolphins.

When Buck, Jake and Luther slid into the lagoon waters, they brought a darkness not seen in the personalities of the females. The lives of these males had been controlled in directions that went against the very nature of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. They had become suspicious and defensive and did not know what would be required of them by this new set of humans.

I have followed these dolphins for the past two years. I have seen them change under the quiet tutelage of Ric O’Barry and the small core of dedicated caregivers. I have witnessed infighting among those humans who were concerned not with the welfare of the dolphins, but with their own private agendas—publicity, power, and money. These people have no applicable knowledge of dolphins but want to control the lives of dolphins, determine their fates, and change their lives—for better or worse. It makes no difference as long as it makes money. I have talked with people who claim they communicate with dolphins, know their thoughts and desires, and then use that claim to enhance their own lives, not the lives of the dolphins. I saw that combination of selfish human influence finally tear the sanctuary apart.

But I also witnessed the efforts of those who worked long and hard to prepare these dolphins for eventual freedom. I saw how they kept painstaking records of each day, kept careful track of how much fish each dolphin ate each day, warned over lack of appetite, tried to stay alert to signs of tension among the males. The males behaved as males will but in captivity the tensions must be higher and harder to release, for there is no escape. Fights occurred, with Luther always the victor. And then the loser had to be separated and watched over. These caregivers grew to know each dolphin and love each one—knowing that a bittersweet ending was not far off, the day when the dolphins would leave them behind. They had no idea how badly it would all end.

I watched these dolphins come to the realization that they were free to be themselves. I watched them race through the water at tremendous speed, push through the surface, arcing high above it and plunging back into the water with resounding splashes. I saw them play together, invent games. At last, it was clear they understood that no tricks were required for food. No dark missions to perform. The dolphins were relaxing, enjoying each other’s company. They were retrieving the natural, normal rhythm of dolphin lives, remembering lessons learned as they swam young and free beside their mothers and aunts many years ago. They will probably never forget their years in bondage, but over time these could fade to ghostly images dimly flickering deep within their memory banks.

But human interference festered, mushroomed, grew large and menacing. People were fired. New people came aboard. A few tried to work against the sanctuary from within, tried to undo all that had been accomplished. They, too, were fired. Threats were made against the sanctuary. Night watches were necessary. The dolphins were disturbed.

When all the detrimental human debris was cleared away, the purpose of the sanctuary was restored. Preparations were made for Bogie and Bacall to leave for Melbourne, back to the Indian River where they were born. That move had been opposed by the sanctuary staff due to the excessive water pollution in the Indian River Lagoon, but National Marine Fisheries did not see a problem.

Ric O’Barry, as Director of Husbandry, had a legal agreement with the Dolphin Alliance to accompany the two females to Melbourne. As soon as he stepped out of the truck, he was arrested for trespassing on the complaint of his former partner, Joe Roberts, and tossed into jail. The people in Melbourne were mostly those who had left the sanctuary in a huff or in disgrace. Not one of them knew how to rehabilitate dolphins, only how to feed them dead fish. In the end, someone, still unknown, cut a hole in the fence that contained Bogie and Bacall, and they escaped. They are free. They are not branded and cannot be identified. But NMFS is out there looking for them, hoping to find them and return them to captivity. They will say that Bogie and Bacall cannot survive in the wild even though they have survived for well over four months.

The Navy dolphins seemed agitated at the loss of their female friends. Only Molly was left, and Jake had bonded with her. Luther, perhaps to assert his dominance and take Molly for himself, attacked Jake, injuring him badly. Jake could not eat or swim and was being burned by the sun. Calls were made to Ann Terbush at NMFS and to officials of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service by sanctuary staff members asking for help in forcing the sanctuary director to separate the males and get Jake into a shaded lagoon. NMFS said it was APHIS problem. APHIS said it was NMFS problem. No help was offered from either agency.

It was decided that Jake could not safely be released. He appeared older than stated in the Navy records and had not fully recovered from the injuries Luther had inflicted. Jake would stay with Molly, who would otherwise be left alone; no dolphin should be alone. They were good friends and would live out their retirement together. Molly is a pre-Marine Mammal Protection Act dolphin, so it was believed she would be safe from NMFS threats.

After eighteen difficult months, freedom seemed at hand for Buck and Luther. Plans were made for transport of the two dolphins to an interim facility for final medical evaluations before embarking on the last leg of their journey to freedom--to the Mississippi Gulf area where they were born. However, a permit for the move to the interim facility was not approved. NMFS had other plans. It was discovered that they had made arrangements to confiscate all the dolphins at the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary. In order to give Buck and Luther one last opportunity for freedom, they were released together in the deep, warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico miles out from Key West, Florida. This area was chosen because of the plentiful fish population and the many resident wild dolphin pods. Buck, the first one in the water, waited for Luther to join him, and then the dolphins raced away, disappearing beneath the calm turquoise surface.

But their taste of freedom was brief and bitter. Almost immediately, cooperative forces gathered at the Key West area: NMFS, the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Marine Patrol, the Marine Mammal Conservancy, and DRC all joined to recapture two Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. Luther was quickly captured because he followed fish right into Key West waters. The reliable Navy ‘recall pinger” brought him to heel. Buck held out a while longer, but in the end the pinger lured him into the Dolphin Research Center. Jake was taken forcibly from Sugarloaf, doing great psychological harm to the quiet dolphin and leaving a grieving Molly alone. In a few days Molly was taken to the Dolphin Research Center, where at least for a time she is with little Buck. Molly will be retired at DRC for the rest of her life. Buck’s fate is uncertain. NMFS wants to ship him off to San Diego. DRC would like to keep him.

I question why so many forces have come together, the government agencies, the media, even others who pose as dolphin advocates, to defeat the release of these four Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. Is it because Ric O’Barry had the effrontery t~ testify before Congress in 1992 about NMFS’ peculiar ‘protection’ of marine mammals? Why is NMFS calling the release illegal when they were unable to put a regulation into effect until after the dolphins had been set free? What legal basis does NMFS have for removing Molly, who was captured before the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 became law? Why does the media simply convey whatever the official pronouncement might be? What is so threatening here?

At this writing, Jake and Luther are being held at the Navy Ocean Surveillance Center in San Diego, California. That Pacific Ocean facility was the only place these Atlantic bottlenose dolphins could get good medical care and good food,” as told to me by Ann Terbush of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“Are you saying there are no qualified marine mammal veterinarians in Florida?” I asked her. No reply.

“Do you have any idea how traumatic it is for these dolphins to be captured, hauled on stretchers, put on a plane for over five hours, and ending in 30 by 30 foot pens?” There was complete silence at the other end of the phone line. I waited. The strained silence stretched out over the wires between Florida and Maryland. I waited. Ms. Terbush had no answer.

NMFS is not concerned with the trauma inflicted on these dolphins. They are not concerned about individual dolphins being prone to heartache, feeling betrayed and shocked by finding themselves right back where their journey to freedom had begun and now has ended so disastrously. This is a government agency that sits in judgment on how many dolphins may be killed per year—as long as reports are filed, and they can keep track of most of the deaths. NMFS requires permits be obtained and regulations followed—or not—depending on just who is involved. They put every obstacle and delay they could manufacture between these dolphins and the freedom they deserve. Then they mustered their forces and struck the final blow.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 should be required reading for everyone in this country who is concerned about our treatment of fellow species who share our planet. Officials at the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and members of Congress should read Dr. Donald Griffin’s The Question of Animal Awareness, a book that takes science to task for refusing to accept the reality of emotions, memories, and intelligent thought in species other than humans. They should read Jeffrey Masson’s and Susan McCarthy’s When Elephants Weep: the Emotional Lives of Animals, a book inspired by Dr. Griffin’s work.

Bottlenose dolphins are intelligent, sensitive, emotional mammals. Each dolphin carries its own personality, likes, and dislikes, and a range of emotions that seem close to our own. In the wild they have a social community and develop lifelong friendships, caring and watching over one another. Females are the nurturers. Mature males roam from pod to pod, keeping the gene pool strong. Dolphins are often playful, joyful. But they also feel anger and sadness and grieve for lost loved ones. For centuries they had few enemies in their world: sharks and sometimes their cousins the orcas. Over the past thirty years or more, the human species has become an increasing danger to them and to their world. Imagine the person closest to you being suddenly whisked away by another species using technology beyond your physical abilities to counteract. Helpless horror cannot stop this aggression. How do you deal with such a traumatic event? How do dolphins deal with the agonizing changes and losses in their lives when they have no means of fighting back? They are defenseless against us. Can we really assume that the pain and suffering felt by those dolphins whose lives are tom asunder is less than we would feel? Can you imagine the confusion, the sadness, the depression, the anger, the hurt felt by these dolphins? We cannot communicate meaningfully with them. They cannot understand why we do what we do to them. Unlike the humans threatened with extinction by aliens in the movie Independence Day, the dolphins have no weaponry, no possible means of defense to save themselves and their world. It is entirely up to us to declare a cease-fire.

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Article to come on the issue of the US dophins of war:

'Military Madness,' by Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll

Please check back later.