First Day at the Cove

I was up at 4:45 this morning for my first trip to the Cove. We started at the harbor to count the banger boats (so named because of the poles attached to them that the fishermen use to bang to round up the dolphins since their hearing is sensitive) going out, then made our way up to a lookout to watch for them coming back and see if they were driving any pods of dolphins ahead of them. While we were there, the weather worsened until all the boats had to come back without any dolphins. YES!

Eleven stones for the eleven banger boats that went out and came back dolphin free.

Later on, we returned to Dolphin Base during feeding time (read as training time).

The dolphins were unable to eat until they had done their tricks, like spinning a ring around their snouts like hula hoops or jumping to reach a red ball on a stick. 


Here's a dolphin pen:

Roughly four dolphins live in each pen, which is just a few meters square. Some of them are let out for a little while, but they never stray more than a few feet from the pen and are quickly herded back. In the wild, dolphins swim roughly 40 miles every day. But here, for our entertainment, they're held in torturously small water cages with limited food and exercise. This shit sucks.