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Senator Kerry. You have recommended, Mr. Prescott, in your 

 testimony that pubHc display ought to include interactive exhi- 

 bition; correct? 



Mr. Prescott. That is correct. 



Senator Kerry. And I assume you are referring to the swim with 

 the dolphins programs, right? 



Mr. Prescott. Yes, some swim with the dolphins programs. 



Senator Kerry. Are there other interactive programs you are 

 thinking of or contemplate? 



Mr. Prescott. No. The other interactives that I think that are 

 widely known are some of the seal feeding, dolphin feeding. 



Senator Kerry. I would really like for you to help us understand 

 why we need interactive programs. I mean, here we are with an 

 intense debate, at least in some quarters, over the value of simply 

 doing the research and having this habitat. Now we have to go one 

 step further and insert people into the habitat in this interactive 

 fashion. 



That interaction has created a number of incidents. I gather one 

 person had their sternum broken when a dolphin smashed into 

 them. There was another incident where somebody had a series of 

 bites. Fortunately, they were not that serious. But a number of 

 people have been roughly treated one way or the other, tapped in 

 the spine, this or that. And then, of course, we have had a problem 

 with an exhibitionist dolphin. 



How do we regulate that? I mean, what are we going to do? And 

 why, what is the necessity here? 



Dr. Stone. Thank you. Senator. For the record my name is Dr. 

 Rae Stone. As a marine mammal veterinarian and a coowner of 

 Dolphin Quest, which is a licensed or permitted swim with the dol- 

 phins program in Hawaii, I am eager to respond to your various 

 questions. 



First of all, I would like to approach the question of why. Inter- 

 active programs in and of themselves are not new. People and dol- 

 phins have been interacting in the wild for generations. Dolphins 

 are known to seek out human interaction in various places around 

 the world, and these interactions have gone on for generations, so 

 it is not in and of itself an unnatural procedure. 



Also, we have known from oceanariums and aquariums and the 

 public display community for years that convalescing dolphins 

 sometimes actually benefit and thrive from personal interaction 

 with their care givers, these being stranded animals that are con- 

 valescing or in fact animals on display that are being convalesced. 

 And those animals actually seem to respond quicker, eat better, 

 and seem fx) thrive on this kind of interaction. 



The four licensed or permitted swim with the dolphin programs 

 have been in existence now for approximately 7 years. Two of those 

 facilities, the Dolphin Research Center and Dolphin Quest, are 

 members of the Alliance and are active members of the public dis- 

 play community. 



As such, our programs contribute greatly to the educational 

 venue of public display. And this value is really undisputed. I am 

 sorry that perhaps you have not been to one of our programs, and 

 neither has Secretary Hall, to answer the question as to what do 



