Voices in the Ocean
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I also owe major thanks to Lori Marino, whose work is as inspiring as it is informative. As I wrote, I asked Lori countless questions, all of which she answered with her signature combination of razor-sharp intellect, great humor, big heart, and patience. I look forward to following her next groundbreaking project, the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy.
During my reporting I was constantly aware of the efforts of individuals and environmental groups to fight necessary battles on behalf of dolphins and whales. In this realm, I am exceptionally grateful to Ric O’Barry. From the moment I was introduced to him in the movie The Cove, Ric gained my admiration and respect, feelings that only grew stronger when I got to know him personally. His devotion to dolphins is legendary, and he has spurred an entire generation of activists. I also wish to thank his son, Lincoln O’Barry.
I met many other fearless and wonderful dolphin advocates while tracing Ric O’Barry’s travels. My thanks go to all of them, and especially: Tim Burns, Carrie Shadley Burns, Masako Maxwell, Terran Vincent Baylor, Arielle Peri, Victoria Hawley, Becca Jurczak, Melissa Thompson Esaia, Vickie Collins, Jeremy Raphael, Veronica Artieda, Daniela Moreno, Russ Ligtas, Sakura Paia, Yaz Riddler, Brittany Clack, Kiki Tanaka, Jess Chan, and the awesome Cara Sands. On the subject of Marineland Canada I am indebted to the investigative work of Toronto Star reporters Linda Diebel and Liam Casey, whose articles did more than educate readers: they prompted government action. I thank all of the Marineland whistleblowers, individuals who stood up for the animals at heavy personal cost. Likewise, I thank the Cove Monitors, everyone who has gone to Taiji to work for a better future there—for dolphins and people. I can attest that it is not an easy place.
At Earth Island Institute, Mark Berman and Mark Palmer provided much support and guidance, both in Taiji and for my trip to the Solomon Islands. The ocean has formidable friends in these two men, and in their colleague, Lawrence Makili. In Honiara I was also grateful for the acquaintance, and the help, of Anthony Turner. In advance of my visit, Byron Washom and Kelly Siman gave me much needed advice about the islands. Chris Porter spoke to me candidly about his experiences at Gavutu and their aftermath.
Further thanks go to Frances Beinecke, Joel Reynolds, and Michael Jasny at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and David Henkin at EarthJustice. Both groups work tirelessly—and effectively—to protect the natural world, in times when the stakes have never been higher. Rising noise and toxic pollution in the oceans are vexing problems, and I greatly appreciate the time they spent explaining these issues to me. Likewise, I am grateful to Mati Waiya, Luhui’Isha Waiya, Jason Weiner, and everyone involved with Wishtoyo Chumash Village, a beautiful model of environmental stewardship.
When I returned to Hawaii to continue my dolphin investigations, I was fortunate to have met Joan Ocean, Jean-Luc Bozzoli, and their friends. The time I spent with them was amazing, and I am thankful for their contributions to this book, and for their ongoing role in engendering a heartfelt connection to cetaceans. Not long after I finished my reporting I had the sublime experience of being in the water with Joan and a pair of gentle, curious humpback whales. I watched from six feet away as one of the whales beelined toward her and basically kissed her underwater, twirling his forty-ton body in delight. If you proceed with love, Joan showed me, you will find it all around you.
No place I traveled to for Voices in the Ocean was more awe-inspiring than Thera. The Minoans may be gone but their stunning artworks remain, so many of them heralding dolphins. For direction about that time and that region, I am indebted to marine scientists Katy Croff Bell and Evi Nomikou, who provided background information and the introduction to archaeologist Lefteris Zorzos. I am grateful to Lefteris for his kindness and his expertise, and I urge interested readers to delve further into the excavations at Akrotiri. The ideal base for your explorations is the Voreina Gallery Suites, a jewel of a hotel run by Lefteris, only ten minutes from the site.
As always, I owe much to my editor, Bill Thomas, who somehow manages to make the years spent working on a book feel like fun. He guided this project from its beginning, and his expertise is present on every page. My gratitude to him is immeasurable. Likewise, I thank his colleagues at Knopf Doubleday for their contributions: Maria Carella, Rose Courteau, Melissa Danaczko, Todd Doughty, John Fontana, Suzanne Herz, Lauren Hesse, Kathy Hourigan, Lorraine Hyland, Lawrence Krauser, Nora Reichard, and Anke Steinecke. At Random House of Canada, I thank Kristin Cochrane, Amy Black, Josh Glover, Brian Rogers, and the rest of their team.
My agent, Eric Simonoff, is a true partner and a constant source of wisdom. His advice and insight are unfailingly smart, and always delivered with warmth and great humor. The same is true of Naomi Barr, researcher extraordinaire. Her dedication, intelligence, and curiosity are evident throughout this volume.
Tim Carvell, Terry McDonell, and Sara Corbett read early versions of my manuscript and offered their usual perfect counsel. In New York, I also owe thanks to Ellen Levine, David Carey, Eliot Kaplan, Lucy Kaylin, Adam Glassman, Karla Gonzalez, and David Granger at the Hearst Corporation. As always, I thank my family: my brother, Bob Casey, my sister-in-law, Pamela Manning Casey, and my mother, Angela Casey, whose love of animals has inspired me throughout my life.
In Hawaii, I am blessed to be surrounded by friends who embody the true spirit of aloha: Donna Palomino Shearer, Don Shearer, Deborah Caulfield Rybak, Michael Rybak, Judie Vivian, Rob Vivian, Devri Schultz, Teddy Casil, Skeeter Tichnor, Suryamayi Aswini, Rich Landry, Linda Sparks, Karen Bouris, Nancy Meola, Paul Atkins, Gracie Atkins, Gabrielle Reece, Laird Hamilton, Shep Gordon, Paula Merwin, and William Merwin. On the mainland, I thank Kelly Meyer, Ron Meyer, Ann Moss, Jerry Moss, Andy Astrachan, Jane Kachmer, Cristina Carlino, Caroline Myss, Gayle King, and Oprah Winfrey for their kindness and support.
Finally, thanks to my nearest, dearest, ridiculously magical ohana: Martha Beck, Karen Gerdes, Adam Beck, Boyd Varty, Koelle Simpson, Travis Stock, Bob Dandrew, Elizabeth Lindsey, Maria Moyer, Shaun Simmons, and above all, Rennio Maifredi.
NOTES
PROLOGUE: HONOLUA
“Despite having sustained”: Michael Zasloff, “Observations on the Remarkable (and Mysterious) Wound-Healing Process of the Bottlenose Dolphin,” Journal of Investigative Dermatology 131 (July 2011): 2503–5. Also: Maureen Langlois, “Shark Bites No Match for Dolphins’ Powers of Healing,” NPR interview, July 25, 2011.
“It’s like dolphins and whales”: Hal Whitehead, as quoted in Charles Siebert, “Watching Whales Watch Us,” The New York Times Magazine, July 12, 2009.
“other utterances”: Sam Ridgway, Donald Carder, Michelle Jeffries, and Mark Todd, “Spontaneous Human Speech Mimicry by a Cetacean,” Current Biology 22 (October 2012): R860–R861.
These adaptations aligned them more with humans: Michael R. McGowen, Lawrence I. Grossman, Derek E. Wildman, “Dolphin Genome Provides Evidence for Adaptive Evolution of Nervous System Genes and a Molecular Rate Slowdown,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 279, no. 1743 (June 27, 2012): 3643–51.
“The future for dolphins”: “Future Bleak for Dolphins and Porpoises,” New Scientist, December 3, 2005, 4.
“Do [dolphins] have”: Rachel Smokler, To Touch a Wild Dolphin: A Journey of Discovery with the Sea’s Most Intelligent Creatures (New York: Anchor Books, 2001), 12.
“Slowly we gave up the attempt”: Loren Eiseley, The Star Thrower (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1978), 37.
CHAPTER 1: THE MEANING OF WATER
“the most mysterious of fauna”: Kenneth S. Norris, “Looking at Wild Dolphin Schools,” Dolphin Societies: Discoveries and Puzzles (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991), 7.
“The Kealake’akua Bay topography was perfect”: Ibid., 11.
I had read about the shy nature: Recently scientists have warned that the presence of swimmers and boats might be affecting the spinners’ ability to rest in Hawaii’s near shore bays. They have recommended long-term studies to deter
mine whether constant human interaction is detrimental to the dolphins. In my experience the captains were careful, and conscious of the spinners, and they stressed the importance of not approaching the animals too closely, or in any kind of aggressive manner. During my swims in Kona, in fact, it was the dolphins who ventured closer to the people, rather than vice versa. Yet it is possible that even the most respectful snorkelers, if there are enough of them, might be disturbing the animals’ regular patterns.
“I view the school as the matrix”: Kenneth S. Norris, letter to Dr. John Lilly, June 22, 1976.
CHAPTER 2: BABIES IN THE UNIVERSE
“We discussed the possibilities”: John C. Lilly, Man and Dolphin (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1961), 40–44.
“There was a powerful”: Ibid., 45–46.
“I wondered how”: Ibid., 43.
“We put him back”: Ibid., 55.
“We were all shocked”: Ibid., 56.
“I was stimulated”: Ibid., 61.
“through small needles”: Ibid., 64.
“Whistles, buzzings”: Ibid., 75–76.
“I had the rather uneasy”: Ibid., 76.
“I suddenly realized”: Ibid., 84.
“We began to have feelings”: John Lilly, MD, PhD, “Productive and Creative Research with Man and Dolphin.” Paper presented at the Fifth Annual Lasker Lecture, Chicago, April 1962.
“I visualize a project”: John C. Lilly, The Mind of the Dolphin (New York: Avon Books, 1967), 66.
“In psychological warfare”: Lilly, Man and Dolphin, 220.
“I started from scratch”: Ibid., 136.
“Within the next decade”: Ibid., 11.
“Scientifically unsound and naïve”: Margaret C. Tavolga and William N. Tavolga, Natural History 71 (1962): 5–7. S
“Borderline irresponsible…”: E. O. Wilson review of Man and Dolphin and Mind of the Dolphin, quoted in Cetacean Societies: Field Studies of Dolphins and Whales, ed. Janet Mann, Richard C. Connor, Peter L. Tyack, and Hal Whitehead (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 28–29.
“I read practically everything”: John C. Lilly, The Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space (New York: Bantam Books, 1972), 2.
“The first few nights”: Lilly, The Mind of the Dolphin, 231.
“naughty dolphin”: Ibid., 231–39.
“My bed now has”: Ibid., 238–42.
“He does not go away”: Ibid., 259.
“This is obviously a sexy”: Ibid., 256.
“Even if it revives”: Stanford University Library, Lilly Papers, Call No. MO786, Box 11, manuscript titled, “The Cetacean Brain,” by John C. Lilly, p. 4. Quoted in Oceans magazine, May 31, 1977.
“Instantly I knew her”: Lilly, The Center of the Cyclone, 228.
“I think many”: Stanford University Library, Lilly Papers, Call No. MO786, Box 11, correspondence between John Lilly and Ken Norris, November 20, 1980.
“There are times”: Lilly, The Mind of the Dolphin, 12.
“Your letter is a breath”: Stanford University Library, Lilly Papers, Call No. MO786, Box 11, correspondence between John Lilly and Ken Norris, December 30, 1980.
“extraterrestrial who has come”: Francis Jeffrey and John C. Lilly, John Lilly So Far (Los Angeles: Jeffrey P. Tarcher, 1990), 211.
“My work now”: Rex Weyler, Song of the Whale (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press), 52.
“For $7,000/month”: Stanford University Library, Lilly Papers, Call No. MO786, Box 11, Project Janus folder.
There was a freewheeling quality: Stanford University Library, Lilly Papers, Call No. MO786, Box 11, Project Janus folder.
“Mankind likes the hero”: Stanford University Library, Lilly Papers, Call No. MO786, Box 11, transcripts from Jenny O’Connor channeling the Nine, dated January 16, 1981, and February 3, 1981.
“If I were from an older”: Lilly, The Mind of the Dolphin, 62.
“The whole philosophy”: Lilly, Man and Dolphin, 55.
“A certain willingness to face”: John Lilly, “A Feeling of Weirdness,” in Mind in the Waters: A Book to Celebrate the Consciousness of Whales and Dolphins, ed. Joan McIntyre (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974), 77.
CHAPTER 3: CLAPPY, CLAPPY!
You would have to decide: These prices and options were offered in February 2012, when I visited the park.
Coincidentally, its name: There is no relationship between these two marine parks.
“the improper burial”: Editorial, “Ocean World Getting Off Too Easy,” South Florida Sun Sentinel, June 5, 1992.
“It was an accident”: Alan Cherry, “Marine Park Under Siege, Hires PR Firm,” South Florida Sun Sentinel, November 25, 1990.
Orcas and beluga whales are popular attractions: One female orca from the Pacific Northwest’s J-Pod is thought to be 103 years old. Female orcas have an average life expectancy of fifty years, with individuals living into their eighties and nineties and beyond; male orcas’ average life expectancy is thirty years, with individuals living into their fifties and sixties and beyond. These are not the kinds of numbers typically seen among orcas in captivity. In a detailed analysis of marine mammal mortality rates, the World Society for the Protection of Animals and the Humane Society of the United States reported that “the overall mortality rate of captive orcas is at least two and a half times as high as that of wild orcas, and age- and sex-specific annual mortality rates range from two to six times as high” (“The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity,” http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/marine_mammals/case_against_marine_captivity.pdf). “Killer whales in captivity live into their teens if they’re lucky, into their 20s if they’re really lucky and maybe into their 30s if they’re amazingly lucky,” Naomi Rose, PhD, senior scientist for the Humane Society, told reporter Jeffrey Wright of the San Antonio Current (“So Wrong, But Thanks for All the Fish,” April 14, 2010). Belugas tell a similar story. In the wild, belugas have life expectancies comparable to orcas’; in captivity, 50 percent of belugas die by age eight.
History has shown: Bottlenose longevity is one of the most contentious issues in cetacean captivity. In recent decades, husbandry has improved at many marine parks, but it is clear that captive dolphins suffer from numerous stressors that adversely affect their health. In the wild, a healthy bottlenose might live for fifty or more years; females as old as forty-five have given birth. To date, only one captive female bottlenose has lived to fifty. In 2004, the South Florida Sun Sentinel ran an investigative series about captive marine mammals in the United States; the paper wrote: “Over the past 30 years, according to federal records, more than 3,850 sea lions, seals, dolphins and whales have died while in the ‘care’ of humans. Of those, about one-fourth perished before the age of 1. Half died by the age of 7.” Currently, approximately 2,400 cetaceans live in captivity in sixty-three countries, including 52 orcas, 227 beluga whales, and some 2,100 bottlenose dolphins. The highest concentrations of animals are in Japan, China, the United States, and Mexico (editorial, “Industry Must Improve Care,” South Florida Sun Sentinel, May 23, 2004).
For an excellent overview of related issues you can download “The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity,” a report from the Humane Society of the United States and the World Society for the Protection of Animals: http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/marine_mammals/case_against_marine_captivity.pdf.
“exchange and disseminate”: International Marine Animal Trainers’ Association, “IMATA’s Mission Statement,” http://www.imata.org/mission_values (accessed June 2014).
“In August last”: Captive Belugas: A Historical Record and Inventory, p. 2. http://www.ceta-base.com/library/cetabasedocs/captivebelugas_august2010.pdf (published August 24, 2010; accessed August 2014).
“fearful death”: “Disastrous Fire,” The New York Times, July 14, 1865.
“the peevish whining”: Kritzler, “Observations of th
e Pilot Whale in Captivity,” Journal of Mammology 33, no. 3 (August 1952): 321–34.
“The dolphin does amazing things”: Richard E. Shepard, “Flipper, the Educated Dolphin, Cavorts in a Seascape Drama,” The New York Times, September 19, 1963.
“Growing attendance”: Tess Stynes and Michael Calia, “Seaworld Profit Up 30%,” The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2013.
Jim Atchison: In the wake of falling attendance and a plummeting stock price, Jim Atchison stepped down from his post as SeaWorld’s CEO in December 2014. He was replaced by Joel Manby, who took over in April 2015.
After a sixteen-hour: Later it was discovered that, along with being subjected to the rave, the dolphins had been fed buprenorphine, a heroin substitute. In 2012, the Swiss government voted to end all live dolphin imports into the country, which resulted in Connyland closing its dolphin show in 2013.
“a perversion”: William Johnson, The Rose-Tinted Menagerie (Easthaven, CT: Inland Book Co., 1990), 220.
They suspect that: William A. Walker and James M. Coe, “Survey of Marine Debris Ingestion by Odontocete Cetaceans,” in R. S. Shomura and M. L. Godfrey, eds., Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Marine Debris (Honolulu, Hawaii, April 1989), 747–50.
Scientist Jason Bruck: Jason N. Bruck, “Decades-Long Social Memory in Bottlenose Dolphins,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280 (October 7, 2013).
“Be wild, be free”: Fox Butterfield, “Claiming Harassment, Aquarium Sues 3 Animal Rights Groups,” The New York Times, October 1, 1991.
No wonder marine parks: Hormones, antifungals, and antipsychotics are also used extensively.