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Digital Publisher
Digital Commons at St. Mary's University
Publication Date
Spring 2025
Description
Dolphin-human interaction programs (DIP) References have become a popular experience offering humans an opportunity to interact or swim with cetaceans, most often bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus).
● Previous studies on dolphin-human interactions have been centered on therapeutic results for humans (Brensing et al., 2005), guests’ future conservation efforts, and educational efficacy (Miller et al., 2013) rather than welfare or outcomes for dolphins (Smith, 1981).
● Under human care, trainers request behaviors from dolphins typically via a hand signal as a discriminative stimulus (SD).
● Resulting behavioral responses to these SDs during interaction programs may suggest willingness to participate (WTP), and potentially indicate overall health and welfare (Clegg et al., 2019). The goal of the present study is to investigate potential relationships between behavioral repertoire variety included in a session, and directed attention of a trainer, with the number of incorrect responses from a dolphin in a DIP. We hypothesize that:
H1: Increasing the variability of behaviors requested will be associated with fewer incorrect responses emitted by the dolphin in a DIP.
H2: Increased trainer attention will be associated with a decrease in number of incorrect dolphin responses in a DIP
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1 page
City
San Antonio, Texas
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
