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Forever Blowing Bubbles

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This video is two and a half years old and has been viewed over five and a half million times on You Tube, so it hardly qualifies as “news” and yet I was completely unaware until yesterday that dolphins at Sea World in Orlando can blow bubble rings out their blow holes and then play games with them.

Some who have viewed the video say this is tragic – they conclude that the dolphins are bored. Others react by saying it is wonderful – this is evidence that dolphins have souls (and like games).

Either might be true. I suspect the producer of the video falls into the second camp, based simply on the music chosen to accompany the images – “No One Is Alone” from Stephen Sondheim’s “Into The Woods”. Just when you thought you were finished with people, you find out your REAL friends are underwater, playing stick-your-nose-through-the-bubble-ring.

I know that if I could shoot air out of the top of my head and manipulate spinning bubbles for the entertainment of appreciative crowds on the other side of a glass panel, I would probably do it. I’m that much of a ham.

But dolphins aren’t hams. Or are they?

My father once suggested while watching this show that we get a pet dolphin to keep in the bathtub. He was kidding, but I worried that he might find a way to pull it off. I’d never seen him fail. But I knew, even at age 11, that having a dolphin in the bathtub would be terribly difficult for us and absolutely no good for the dolphin. Cooler heads prevailed. The tub stayed dolphin-free.

If you were a dolphin in captivity, what would you do to keep things interesting?

59 thoughts on “Forever Blowing Bubbles”

  1. Good Morning Captives,

    I have often thought that if I had to, I could kept myself entertained by thinking about things. Maybe I would make up stories or come up with various things to occupy my mind. I guess I could try this if I turned into a dolphin held in captivity. I have never been caught in a situation where I needed to keep myself entertained in the way I have suggested for an extended amount of time, so I don’t know if I could do it.

    Usually we assume that dolphins and other animals can’t do many things that we can do, but I think we really don’t know what they can do.

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    1. check out the movie “rocket man” .
      it is a classic and a riot. truly one of the funniest movies i have ever watched. there is a scene where they(nasa) are checking to see if an extended stay in total solitude would be too much of a burden for the potential astronauts and the response is a good smile.

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      1. Thanks for the film suggestion, Tim. I might try to get it on Netflix. I guess it is the film by this name produced in 1997 by Disney.

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      2. yep. the lead character harland williams has never done anything memorable before or since but this role was incredible. enjoy

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      3. I loved that movie when I was a kid 🙂 I haven’t seen it in years. I’ll have to find it. Thanks for bringing it back, haha.

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    2. Oh, good! Now, thanks to that opening line, I will have THAT song in my head all day. (And if the line didn’t immediately insert a worm in your ear, allow me to assist: “Good mornin’ captuhhhhhn…..” And then, if you still didn’t get infected, we’ll pick up the lyrics a bit later: “bring the buck-buck-bucket down.”)
      Johnny Cash? Or Buck Owens? Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I can now procrastinate by finding out.

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      1. Lisa — You refer to “Mule Skinner Blues,” a song performed by many, including the grandpappy of bluegrass, Bill Monroe. plus Lonnie Donegan, Woody Guthrie, Jimmie Rodgers, the Fendermen, Jose Feliciano and Dolly Parton. I do NOT charge for dispensing bon mots of information like this.

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  2. Rise and Shine Babooners:

    Wow, what a gorgeous day. Hope everybody can get out of the water and enjoy the day. People are who they are, as are dolphins. I assume that in dolphin captivity I would do what as I do as a human in the captivity (which I choose) of my life — grow the garden, nosh on the veggies I grow, and arrange the sea flowers. I’d probably clear a patch on the bottom of the aquarium floor to see what I could make grow there.

    For example, this weekend one Iowa niece is getting married Sunday. I leave tomorrow for my sister’s house (niece’s mother) to assist on Friday as my sister dissolves into the drama of her life, then I’ll (happily) arrange the flowers and bouquets for the ceremony. Nothing passes the time more joyfully than having flowers to play with while I listen to an audiobook (right now Elizabeth George: This Body of Death).

    Do dolphins get audiobooks?
    the ceremony

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      2. I like her. She has a London mystery series with a gentried detective (Thomas Lynley) and a commoner (Barbara Havers). PBS has made a series out of it that is also good.

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      4. Be forewarned, Tim, that if you pursue the Elizabeth George path, something happens that you may find very challenging, difficult, and, well, unsporting. About eleventeen books in. And you may find yourself having to put her down and will be unable to pick up another of her books.
        (was that unsporting of ME to mention, Georgites? I’m just still not over It, lo these many years later.)

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  3. If dolphins could have water-safe power tools, maybe I could make stage sets for the other dolphins to perform upon. I’m sure an all-dolphin cast of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” would be fabulous!

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  4. Never having seen Flipper, I find myself desperately short on ideas for ways of passing the time if I were a dolphin in confinement. I used to wonder how they could possibly make a TV series with a dolphin as the central character. Dolphins don’t have expressive faces, so they can’t project a variety of emotions, sort of like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his early films. Lacking hands and fingers, they really can’t interact with their environment very creatively. They can’t read books, smoke cigars, cook spicy food, play guitar, write articles about the importance of clean water, attend accordion performances or take long walks with their dogs.

    What I would like to say is that, given those limitations, I would become a performing dolphin. Teamed up with bikini-clad humans, I would perform awe-inspiring leaps and somersaults and other aerial maneuvers to amuse the paying public. But, gee, at my age that sounds like a lot of work. And the reward is a few fish . . . and I don’t like eating fish.

    The truth of what I’d do is embarrassing. Dolphins just aren’t built to DO much. I’d probably spend hours chasing lady dolphins or studying the people looking at me through the glass, making snarky comments about them. Can dolphins watch TV? I’d probably waste a lot of time watching “Animal Planet.”

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    2. Steve,
      Dolphins could be IN the TV. As you point out, they have one facial expression that always looks like a smile, they make a chattering sound and they do tricks. That makes them perfect candidates for the position of local news anchor.
      We just have to find a way to put beautiful hair on those slippery heads.

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      2. could you spend 6 or 7 hours photoshoping this for us please dale? i’m thinking sgt peppers lonley hearts club motif , don king, heidi, the supremes, bob dylan, george washington, george foreman (wait we already have that) but we could add the howie mandel soul patch!

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  5. in 1996 a friend told me to come to atlanta to see the olympics. it would be the opportunity of a lifetime. i took him up on it and when i showed up assuming his couch and companionship would be available he told me to enjoy myself, that he was really busy and i had to laugh at my assumption came with more than a conversational advice. the return ticket was for 10 days later when the olympics ended and i found a lace to throw my backpack and took my 1000 dollars and discovered that tickets for olympic tiddley winks cost 100 to 150 apiece. soccer or basketball was 200-500 dollars a pop.
    i started buying 4 packs of tickets and selling 3 or 2 packs and selling 1, i met great people buying and selling, sat next to some of them when they had 4 tickets, sold me 3 and i sold the other 2. people would stop just to ask if i was really a scalper ( i did it differently than the other scalpers i guess) i had the time of my life and had to arrange my brain so that i was going from one moment to the next rather than plannignout a social structure for the next week and it was wonderful. i ended up renting a car to go to the olympic gold match in athens ga an hour away ( I had my nigeria t shirt on when they won) and went home with a brain full of memories ( i left my camera at the bob dylan concert in the central area of the olympic plaza so no photos to go over but my brain always has better photos that the 4×5 realities.
    i think if i were in a tank full of dolphins swimming around in circles all day i would figure out a way to give the others a poke in the ribs and a dolphin hot foot to keep life in the tank a giggle and a hoot.

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      1. Oops, meant to put that in the main section… But since I’m here, tim, you have some of the most amazing stories.
        p.s. Didn’t see you at Lake Harriet, were you there? Dan Newton’s Cafe Accordian Orchestra is a really fun one.

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      2. i was on my way when i got a call from my son that he was in a 7:30 ballgame. so i did an about face and the fatherly thing. i will get down to the loring pasta bar on the regular tuesday night performance one of these weeks. i am on the squeeze daddy facebook mailing list so i keep up with dan and his many hats but do not get out to see him often enough. i am going to try for next tuesday at the pasta bar

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  6. I would make a point of following trainer directions, only a few seconds off, so that any dolphin show went according to my timing. I think I would also pretend that the fish I was offered weren’t to my liking, so that they would have to give me exquisite suishi to keep my alive.

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      1. It is regularly obtainable in Bismarck and Fargo. I wouldn’t eat it if you paid me, but I bet a dolphin would really like it.

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      2. vegie sushi is very tasty. the nosw clearing wasabi and the ginger to cleanse the palette are things that you need to figure out how to incorporate into your life.

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  7. Morning–
    I’d have to agree that I would entertain myself… but hopefully there would be others and as long as I had friends around it would be OK… until it was time, then: ‘So long! And Thanks for all the fish’

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    1. my thought was what if you were sentenced to a tank with that whining sniveling little twit who would make it less than ideal to wake up and put in another day.
      if in the wild you are a hunter gatherer then to bwe in a tank where the mission is to wait for the next feeding would provide you with ample time to fill. the fact that these guys come up with playing with rings and bubbles is a trip. good for them i could hang with them for sure.

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  8. I would arrange my fish dinners in complicated patterns and smile while my trainers tried to find meaning in random gibberish made of herring.

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  9. Assuming there are several other friend dolphins, I would organize sing-alongs to take place on Anna’s stage, there must be a way to have an underwater piano… And I could help choreograph the dances for Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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    1. well, that made me cry.
      Jacque, wish you were closer. there is a host of flowers to gather here – i’m just in from the most beautiful morning outing in the pasture with the Girls. sun, some shade, a light breeze, and the all of the wild flowers out there (birdsfoot trefoil, blackeyed susan, red clover, yarrow, goldenrod, milkweed, many others, and all types of grasses blooming. and over it all, the sounds of the Girls munching – so wonderful!)

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      1. Yes, she is a great writer. Published her first book in Sept. 09 about parenting medically fragile kids.

        I wish I had access to those flowers, too! This bride would love the wildflowers–I am to do the bouquets “messy.”

        So do you put flowers behind the girls’ ears? Once when we were in the Black Hills looking at buffalo, one had a pine sprig caught behind her ear–very alluring! What a sight.

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    2. What a beautiful entry by your sister, and lovely images from Barb too. Thank you! Hope the wedding goes well.

      Munch, munch, munch, say the Girls.

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  11. Don’t tell me I’m the only one here who knows that dolphins are one of the only animals besides humans that engage in sex for pleasure. Need I say more??

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    1. This helps confirm something I read somewhere, that Dolphins and Whales are as smart in their own way as humans…

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  12. OK, it’s July and things in the garden will be here soon enough: time for a garden recipe.

    Oven Ratatouille

    “This tastes better when made and reheated, and it even tastes good at room temperature. Vary the vegetables according to what you like and what’s available.”

    (1) medium eggplant, cubed
    (6) small zucchini and/or crookneck squash cut in ½ inch slices
    (1) large red or yellow onion, sliced or coarsely chopped
    (4) cloves of garlic, minced
    (6) (plum) tomatoes, quartered
    (1) medium green (and/) or red bell pepper, cut in 1-inch squares
    – some mushrooms, cut in half or quarters
    – green beans

    ½ tsp. oregano and/or marjoram (or a tsp. Italian herb blend
    ¼ tsp. thyme or other favorite herbs)
    1 tsp. salt (or to taste)
    ½ C. extra virgin olive oil
    (some pepper)

    Place all ingredients except olive oil in a 3-quart casserole or 9×13 baking dish. Drizzle olive oil over all and mix to coat everything well. (Or do this in a huge bowl and then pour into casserole to bake.) Bake uncovered for 1 ½ hours in a 325 degree oven. The vegetables will cook down considerably.

    Adapted from p. 190 of The Mode Cure by Julia Ross

    Barbara in Robbinsdale says: the parentheses are my thoughts and approximate quantities — I’ve never actually have those exact amounts, and it has still come out great every time. Basically you just cut up any number of veggies in large chunks, coat them with olive oil, salt, and herbs, and bake ‘em. 🙂

    I use it as a side dish, or add chunks of fish or chicken for a main dish. It is also good on pasta (you can add more liquid like tomato sauce if you like).

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    2. i wish the state rodent hadn’t eaten all of my zucchini seeds (before they even sprouted!!) oh well. as you say, we can wing it and it’ll still taste good. thanks!
      i’m thinking of changing our farm name from MeadowWild Alpine Goats to MeadowWild State Rodent Sanctuary
      and Donna, i think the State Rodent does it for fun also. otherwise i don’t think there’d be so dang many of them!!

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  13. I think that I’d do my suffering martyr bit…..gaze stoically off into the distance with a stiff upper dolphin lip and give long squeeky sighs. That’s pretty much what I do every morning anyway now that RH is gone.

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  14. Does anyone know if the dolphins blow bubbles in the wild or if it’s just a behavior to escape the boredom of captivity? If they do it in the wild, what is the function of the behavior? Could it be the dolphin of equivalent of revving the motorcycle or showing a little leg?

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    1. Hi Beth-Ann,

      Good question.
      Here’s a longer video about it from Sea World.
      They don’t say that it’s a natural behavior, but they don’t say it isn’t.
      We are led to believe this is something that can only be seen at Sea World in Orlando. If dolphins elsewhere are doing the same thing, why haven’t they posted their own videos on You Tube?

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  15. Thanks Dale! They seem to imply that it’s a new behavior that is being spread from one dolphin to another. Maybe it’s the marine mammal equivalent of the first person who said, “Have a good day,” and started a trend among store clerks.

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