As might be expected in a savage custody dispute, a battle over captive dolphins has been marked by litigation and sniping, with warring factions all saying they are acting in the best interest of the mammals.
And, as in the most bitter of child custody cases, there has even been a "kidnapping" or two: Four bottle nose dolphins that were being prepared for release into their natural habitat were allowed to escape or removed from their holding pens.
Two of the dolphins, females named Bogey and Bacall, escaped in a nighttime act of vandalism on May 17 from the Dolphin Alliance's Indian River Lagoon installation on Florida's Atlantic Coast. The other two, males named Luther and Buck, were taken last week from the privately run Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary in the Florida Keys.
Last week's kidnapping, in daylight and with witnesses who alerted the Federal authorities, was in open defiance of National Marine Fisheries Service requirements that before they are released, captive dolphins must first be able to forage for food on their own and to defend themselves from predators, and be free of diseases that could be passed on to the wild population. The agency also says that dolphins, once freed, must be monitored to determine whether the release program works.
These behavioral, medical and tracking requirements are the main source of discord among dolphin advocates. Here in Florida, the only state with release programs for captive dolphins, they have divided would-be protectors into two camps: those who want to insure that dolphins can survive in the wild and favor the Federal Government's scientific approach, and those who want to set them free as soon as possible, insisting that readaptation is as simple as moving them into natural sea water and feeding them for a while, then giving them a clean bill of health and letting go.
Indeed, some people who advocate quick release maintain that the Federal regulations, devised by a branch of the Commerce Department, are intended to favor those who use captive dolphins.
"Just more mumbo-jumbo" to deter releases opposed by the "captive industry" is how Ric O'Barry refers to the explanations offered for delaying releases. Mr. O'Barry, 58, trained dolphins for the 1960's television series "Flipper" and, until recently, was a Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary director. He has taken full responsibility for the removal of the male dolphins from the sanctuary, saying, "I've been preparing them for one and a half years, and they were ready."
Correction: June 27, 1996, Thursday An article on June 1 about a dispute over releasing captive dolphins into the wild referred incompletely to the actions of Ric O'Barry, who removed two male dolphins from the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary in the Florida Keys last month and set them loose in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite critics' concern about "kidnapping," photographs show that the release was carried out with the assistance of Lloyd A. Good 3d, the sanctuary's director.