Word: kewalo
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...dappled pool not far from the clamor of Waikiki Beach, two female dolphins poke their heads out of the water, waiting for a command. "O.K.," says Louis Herman, founder and director of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, "now let's try a tandem creative." Two graduate students, positioned at opposite ends of the 50-ft. tank, throw full body and soul into communicating this message to the animals, Phoenix and Akeakamai. First the humans ask the dolphins to pay attention by holding a finger high in the air. Then they tap the index fingers of each hand together, forming...
Something less than true creativity may account for the dolphin flights of fancy seen at Kewalo Basin, but something more than simple mimicry seems to be at work in the case of this 1-lb. bird...
Communication between humans and dolphins at Kewalo Basin occurs mostly through a gestural language that borrows some words from American Sign Language. The trainers make the gestures with big, enthusiastic arm movements, asking Phoenix or Akeakamai to follow such commands as "person left Frisbee fetch," which means "bring the Frisbee on the left to the person in the pool," or "surfboard person fetch," in which Akeakamai gently pushes a human volunteer over to the surfboard...
...couple of 350-lb. female Atlantic bottlenosed dolphins want? Well, maybe the freedom of the seas. At least that was the thinking of their nighttime caretakers, both former University of Hawaii students who five weeks ago let the dolphins, named Kea and Puka, escape into the Pacific from the Kewalo Basin Marine Research Facility of the University of Hawaii. The two men, Steve Sipman, 26, and Ken LeVasseur, 26, argued that the dolphins were "slaves" that were "undergoing remorseless experiments...
...everyone has lost. The Oahu grand jury has indicted both keepers for grand theft. The Kewalo Basin's director, Louis M. Herman, discounts the argument that the experiments were heinous: scientists were teaching the mammals to understand two-word sentences by means of computer beeps, and the dolphins were on the verge of learning three-word sentences. All that research, which cost close to $500,000, is down the drain. Worse, says Herman. Kea and Puka, untrained to feed themselves and unable to communicate with Pacific dolphins, are doubtless dead by now, the victims of starvation, sharks -and mindless...