Coming up next on Jonathan Bird's Blue World, Jonathan heads down to the island of Curaçao to meet up with a friendly dolphin named Annie. Hi, I'm Jonathan Bird and
welcome to my world! ( ♪ music ) Some say that dolphins are the
most intelligent animals in the
ocean. Many divers consider swimming with wild dolphins to
be the ultimate underwater
experience. But finding wild
dolphins that will cooperate is no easy
task. This is the alternative—the
dolphin encounter at the
Curacao Seaquarium where
trained dolphins love to interact with divers. Curacao is an island in the
southern Caribbean, not too far
from the coast of Venezuela. Divers love Curacao because of
the warm, clear water and
healthy coral. The Curacao Sea aquarium was
built in 1984 and one of its
biggest attractions is the dolphin program. Not only can divers and
snorkelers interact with
dolphins here, but they can
even take a half-day course to learn how
dolphins are trained. Today I'm going behind the
scenes to learn from the
master: George Kieffer, the head of the dolphin program here at
the Sea aquarium. The day starts before sunrise
as George sorts the fish for
the dolphins to eat. Each
dolphin eats 25 to 30 pounds of herring
a day, hand fed by the
trainers. George carefully
checks the quality of each and every
fish that the dolphins will
eat, and selects only the best ones. The others go to the
shark exhibit. Basically, the rule in the fish
kitchen is "When in doubt,
throw it out." Later, I head out to the lagoon
to get an introduction to
interacting with the Bottlenose dolphins Rubbery! Like a wet inner tube. It's a little silly, but I get
to kiss a dolphin. Nearby, another group are
learning to interact more
closely with the dolphins. But my next stop is George's
office, where I learn about Bottlenose
dolphins by taking his
hour-long dolphin course. After
I become more knowledgeable about
dolphin behavior, I'll be ready
for my big adventure—a dolphin dive on the reef. Later, I head to the dive boat
where I meet several other divers who are
joining me on the dive. George gives us a few last
words of advice for
interaction. Underwater, there
is no feeding, so the dolphins can choose
whether or not they want to
interact with the divers. How we act around them will have a
huge impact on their
willingness to play. It's OK to touch her fins, the
pectoral fins on both sides,
the dorsal fin on her back, it's OK to touch those, but
don't hold on. Don't grab her.
She's holding her breath down there, so imagine
somebody grabbing you
underwater. By late in the
dive, she is going to be very comfortable
with everybody. She might even
swim right up to you, face to face, and if she comes right
to you, cup your hands like
this. She might just drop her chin right there in your
hand and let you rub under her
chin. She does like that. Just don't comb your hand over
her face. Finally, we leave the dock and
head to the open sea. Somewhere
out there, a dolphin is following the boat! Although
the dolphins live at the sea
aquarium, they allow one or two out onto the reef every day
to play with divers and get
some exercise. Today it's a female named Annie. Finally it's time to suit up
and, with a little luck, play
with a dolphin! I'm Ready! 52
00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:25,510 Jonathan: Are you ready Tim? Cameraman Tim: Ready. Go. I hit the water and immediately
start looking all around. I
hope Annie is in a playful mood because if she's not, she might
not come and play with us. When
the dolphins are out on the reef, they are free to
do as they please. But I don't have to wait long.
As soon as she hears scuba
bubbles, Annie comes over to check us out. It turns out
the dolphins love to play with
divers. This is one of those times when
it's great to be the guy with a
huge video camera. Annie is a real ham...she races
around me putting on a show in
front of my lens, swooping in, twisting and turning, then
zipping around behind me and
back to the front faster than I can even turn to keep up with
her. The faster I turn to keep
up, the faster she swims around me. I'm starting to get dizzy! She seems to be having a great
time, but then she leaves.
George has jumped into to join the fun and Annie goes right to
him. George is her pal. This is good news for all the
divers in our group, because
George comes over and stays with us, so Annie will too. At first Annie only wants
attention from George. He shows
us how he has trained her to
stick her tongue out. She stays down
with us for so long, sometimes
I forget that dolphins are mammals and breathe air.
Every few minutes she needs to
run to the surface for a breath. But after she gets back with a
fresh breath of air, George
encourages her to say hello to some of the other divers.
Soon he brings her to me and
she stays still so I can touch her soft skin. It feels rubbery
and slick, like a wet inner
tube. But I can feel her strong muscles underneath that
skin. She is a powerful animal,
capable of swimming 30 miles per hour—which is really
fast underwater! As George introduces her to the
next diver, I film the fun and
marvel at the incredible relationship Annie has with
George. You can just tell that
they are great friends. Sometimes when I'm in the
middle of a shoot like this I
get so involved in being a
cameraman that I forget to appreciate the
excitement of what I'm actually
doing. Not today. Because right now I'm doing one of the
things that almost all divers
dream about—diving with a dolphin! And it's awesome! All too soon however, the fun
has to end. We can't hold our
breaths for minutes at a time so when our scuba tanks
get low, it's time to head back
to the boat. Now that was fun! You can tell
the dolphins are kinda used to
that shtick. You know it's like "Oh it's Monday, it's my
day to go play with the humans.
Oh man, I can't believe it, can you take my
Monday?" It does make one point. They're
captive, but they must not mind
it took much because, if you can bring them out of
the reef—if they didn't like
it, they could swim away. But they don't. So they must
find something about it not so
bad. The fact is that the dolphins
at the Sea aquarium were born
and raised in captivity and the hard part isn't keeping them
from swimming away, but in fact
convincing them to leave the safety of their home and go
out on the reef, as George
explains. The easy part of the program is
coming back. Going out has
traditionally been the more difficult part of the training.
And I think the reason why is,
coastal bottlenose dolphins are territorial. They don't
roam the oceans, they're not
like these pelagic species that will move about through huge
swathes of the open sea. No,
these guys adopt a coastline and they stick to it. So what
we're doing is—once they have
become accustomed to their facility—what you're doing is
you are sort of exposing them
to more area around the facility and they are
co-opting that as their range,
their territory. George also explained that not
all of the dolphins like to go
outside the Sea aquarium. Some prefer to interact with
people in their private lagoon. I'm so glad to discover that
these dolphins are happy and
healthy at the Curacao Sea
aquarium, and especially grateful to one
special dolphin named Annie who
came out to play with me, even if it was just for an hour. ( ♪ music )
