THE DOLPHIN STRATEGY

摘要

Dawn noren hoists oxygen tanks onto her back, places an air regulator in her mouth, grabs a plastic box and slate, and falls out of the motorboat into the ocean. Through 50 feet of pale blue Bahamas water she can see the ten other divers kneeling in a circle on the sandy, ribbed seafloor. She swims down to the group and positions herself at its edge. Two more divers arrive and glide into the middle of the circle, carrying with them long white drums full of dead herring. They are followed by the animals that brought everyone here: two Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins named Bimini and Stripe. The circled divers are tourists who have paid dearly- about $100- to spend half an hour in the dolphins' element. The two divers with the dead fish are Patrick Berry and Eden Butler, trainers who work with a company called the Dolphin Experience, which keeps 13 animals in a nine-acre lagoon outside Freeport. Berry and Butler have spent years getting the dolphins to interact with customers on command. Berry points to a diver, who puts out his palm, and Bimini swims to it, curving his path so the diver can touch his rubbery skin. The dolphins snatch rings and spin divers like turnstiles by pushing against their outstretched arms. The favorite is the kiss: a diver takes the regulator out of his mouth and the dolphin puts its beak- shaped mouth to the human's lips.