Life‐threatening Contact Between a Woman and a Pilot Whale Captured on Film

INCREASED AVOIDANCE OF SWIMMERS BY WILD BOTTLENOSE DOLPHINS (TURSIOPS TRUNCATUS) DUE TO LONG‐TERM EXPOSURE TO SWIM‐WITH‐DOLPHIN TOURISM

“…Instead, it appears to be more of an aversive stimulus, but despite an increase in avoidance, no aggression towards swimmers has been observed. Aggressive or agonistic behaviors have been reported in other swim-with situations, e.g., the captive swim-with bottlenose dolphin study conducted by Samuels and Spradlin (1995), and the interactions with short-finned pilot whales (Globzcephula macrorhynchs) reported by Shane (1993) and Carwardine (1994). As only 36% of dolphin groups encountered in the Bay of Islands were exposed to a swim attempt, this level of exposure is unlikely to be significant enough to result in a change in their ranging patterns and habitat use.…”

Reducing risky interactions between tourists and free-ranging dolphins (Tursiops sp.) in an artificial feeding program at Monkey Mia, Western Australia

“…These factors included duration of time dolphins waited before being fed, presence and absence of food, and identity of the interacting dolphin. Although risky interactions recorded during the present study were typically brief, infrequent and did not result in injury, the potential remains for tourists or dolphins to be harmed or killed (e.g., Samuels & Bejder, 2004;Santos, 1997;Shane, Tepley, & Costello, 1993).…”

Tourist Attitudes Towards Marine Mammal Tourism: An Example from the Dominican Republic

“…Promoting the wild In fact, wild dolphins, particularly bottlenose dolphins, can be very aggressive: bottlenose dol-nature of dolphins on dolphin-watching trips may also reduce harassment of wild cetaceans, which is phins have been reported killing harbor porpoises (Ross & Wilson, 1996)-a cetacean with a mass often a problem in areas where there are captive cetacean facilities that allow in water interactions similar to that of humans-conspecifics (Dunn, Barco, Pabst, & McLellan, 2005;Patterson et al, with the animals (which would include the Dominican Republic)-as noted by the Scientific Commit-1998) and there is one report of a bottlenose dolphin killing a human (Santos, 1997). Wild dol-tee of the International Whaling Commission, phins that are regularly fed by humans (often in in several locations where there are captive dolorder to gain closer access to the animals, includphin facilities with swim-with programs, petting ing to swim with them) have also displayed ag- swimmers (e.g., Shane, Tepley, & Costello, 1993);mission, 2007, p. 337) thus, the image of cetaceans as benign and wanting to swim with humans is essentially false. In Although this study does not attempt to record tourists' behavior, and instead relies on self-addition to injury, there is also the risk of disease transmission from dolphins to humans, and from reporting, it is clear that there could be many benefits to a marine mammal tourism industry in Bay-humans to dolphins; swim-with-dolphin attractions have specifically been named as a risk activ-ahibe; indeed, the responses of tourists seem to be supportive of the introduction of "whale ecotour-ity (Hunt et al, 2008).…”