We simply choose to interpret them as wonderful, caring acts. They're not animals we should underestimate in terms of their physical power. There are instances of dolphins actually killing people. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University, and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education. I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment.
Scientists say that human interest in bottlenose dolphin is both a wonderful and terrible thing.
Attention and awareness, they say, is a good thing. The Bottlenose Dolphin, perhaps more than any other marine mammal, is symbolic in much of the minds of the public. And I think that symbolism can work for or against the animal. Swimming with them or otherwise interacting closely with them doesn't necessarily do the animals any good, even though those activities are done with the best of all possible intentions. The future that I'd like to paint for the dolphins is one where we continue to have great respect for what the dolphins are and can do.