Ithaka's Odyssey: Key West Diary 11

On one of our "play days" we decided to drive over to Marathon, FL (about 40 miles from Key West) and visit the Dolphin Research Center. This facility is home to about 57 dolphins and several sea lions. Most of the dolphins have either been rescued and brought back to health or have been born here and have no desire to return to the wild.

This is the location where the series Flipper was filmed several years ago and many of the dolphins are the "grand kids or great grand kids" of the original Flipper.

The whole complex is a series of lagoons that are divided into separate swimming areas that can be gated off when they want to conduct training or research on a particular dolphin or group of dolphins. The rest of the time all the gates remain open and all the dolphins have the complete run of the entire complex. As can be seen, the walls are very low and can be easily jumped if the dolphins ever wanted to return to the wild, but none have.

All of the trainers work with each of the dolphins every day for some length of time.

Each dolphin has his own fish bucket from which he is fed, so that they can monitor their diet and make sure they stay healthy.

Of course part of their training is to put on a show for the humans, such as swimming on their back.

.......or standing on their head.

.......,or swimming around acting like an alligator.

Since dolphins receive all of their fresh water from the fish they eat, they cannot drink salt water just like humans can't, the trainers will sometimes supplement their fresh water intake by sliding a long tube down to one of their five stomachs and pouring in a gallon of fresh water to keep them hydrated. This is what this intern is doing in this picture.