Wild dolphins may bite when they are angry or afraid. Dolphins are disturbed when people try to swim with them, they can also lose their natural wariness which makes them easy targets for predators. Dolphins also display aggression over territory and mating. Dolphins are hunters and feeding them disrupts their social groups which threatens their ability to survive in the wild. They learn to associate people with food which can result in aggressive behaviour when they don't get what they want.
Human food can also make dolphins ill.
Bottlenose Dolphins are protected by law under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act . This is close enough for many of the dolphins to be individually recognised and they can be watched from the quay and from the cliffs along the coastline. Further sightings information is available from the Home page. A few commercial boat operators run boat trips along the Marine Heritage Coast where the full range of wildlife can be seen. These boats are subject to a strict Code of Conduct and, to keep disturbance to marine wildlife to a minimum, no excursion is viewed as a dolphin watching trip.