Tatiana Belei
The Head of Dolphin Rescue and Research Center "The Delfa"
In Sochi, the dolphins receive help. For more than a year and a half, the unique Delfa Center - the Dolphin Rescue and Research Center - has been operating on the Black Sea coast. Tatiana Belei, the Head of the Delfa Center told EcoTourism Expert about why this is necessary and what has already been done.
- Please tell us how the idea of creating the Dolphin Rescue and Research Center in Sochi came up.
- I am fond of freediving, I often come into contact with dolphins in the wild and always tried to meet these smart animals. Once, I watched the famous film ‘The Bay’, which showed the dolphin drive hunt in Japan, in Taiji Harbour. The best dolphins are sent to work in dolphinariums around the world, the rest are simply killed. This slaughter continues from year to year. When you are constantly immersed in the environment, you are in the sea, you begin to better understand all its problems from the inside. I realized at that time that, in general, no one knows anything about how dolphins and white whales get into the numerous Russian dolphinariums. I decided that I need to make a film about the ‘behind the scenes’ workings. Thus, in co-authorship with my friends and with their support - stage director Gayane Petrosyan and the first Russian freediving champion Yulia Petrik - we made a documentary film ‘Born Free’ about the white whales and dolphins that were in captivity, about the international dolphin and white whale trade, as well as the cruel business built on suffering and death of the marine mammals. While making the film, I met a team of like-minders who understand that dolphins should be free and live in the wild, and people should help them. These are scientists who are experts in marine mammals - Tatiana Denisenko, Ekaterina Dzhikiya, Grigory Tsidulko - as well as the environmentalists and activists - Oksana Fedorova, Lusine Balabajyan.
The last straw in taking our decision to create the Center was the story of two bottlenose dolphins, Delfa and Zeus, that were illegally caught in the Black Sea to be sold to a dolphinarium, and they were kept in an abandoned barn, in a ‘pool’ equipped in a silage pit in the village of Veselovka, the Krasnodar Territory. The activists managed to take these mammals from the violators and transfer the bottlenose dolphins to the sea dolphinarium, but there was no chance to save them. Their state was simply terrible, the dolphins were seriously ill, all body was in ulcers, their tails were twisted. Delfa's condition was critical, it died very quickly ... Zeus was a very freedom-loving dolphin, it waited for its release for about six months, but the proceedings took long, and it died, having lost faith in people. The goal of creating the Dolphin Rescue and Research Center was the need to talk about the critical condition of cetaceans and the possibility to improve the situation.
- Why is such a center necessary?
- The life in captivity, even in the best conditions, is painful for dolphins. They need to dive, constantly move long distances, and swimming in a circle in the pool cannot replace this in any way. Dolphins are not pets that need a human being. These are very freedom-loving, intellectual, social beings, they suffer when their families are disunited. Imagine that you would have to live your entire life in the toilet, and even with a metal bucket on your head? This is exactly what dolphins experience in captivity, being unable to fully echolocate, move, communicate with loved ones, and they are forced to live in a very limited space in the chlorinated water.
According to various sources, about 5,000 bottlenose dolphins live in the Black Sea today. Despite the fact that they are listed in the Red Book, about 200 of these dolphins are kept in dolphinariums to entertain the public. Since 2002, it was banned to capture the bottlenose dolphins in the Black Sea, so new dolphins are often registered using the documents of the animals that have already died, and sometimes the ‘Black Sea’ bottlenose dolphins are passed off as the ‘Japanese’ ones. Very few dolphins are born in dolphinariums, and even fewer newborn cubs survive in captivity. However, the main problem is that even in case of detecting the violations and confiscating the dolphins, there are no specialized centers in our country that carry out rehabilitation and release the cetaceans into the wild. The Black Sea dolphins remain in custody in the same dolphinarium or are sent to another ‘prison’, and there is no chance to find out where they are. We hope that the situation will start changing. Quite recently, a group of people who illegally captured the Black Sea bottlenose dolphin for one of the dolphinariums was detained and punished. The dolphin was confiscated, but its further fate is unknown. According to the law, it is subject to be returned to the natural habitat. We are ready to provide every assistance and support, to carry out a dolphin rehabilitation and release it into the wild, both on our own and in cooperation with the specialists from other respective organizations.
- Can the animals from dolphinariums survive in the wild?
- Successful experience in the rehabilitation of captive dolphins in the world has been around for almost half a century. Two years ago, my colleagues at the Center and I took part in the rehabilitation of the dolphins and their release in the high seas in South Korea, they had lived in captivity for 20 years. Also, Delfa specialists helped in the release of the killer whales and white whales from the whale ‘prison’ in the Primorye, as members of the ‘Freedom to Killer Whales and White Whales’ coalition and the Jean-Michel Cousteau international team. As practice shows, marine mammals adapt admirably in the wild.
- Recently, you have announced fundraising at the crowdfunding site Pkaneta.ru. What do you need the money for?
- We try to collect over 8 million rubles. We require this money to create a stationary center for the rehabilitation and release of dolphins into the wild - their natural habitat - after their stay in captivity, and also, for the full-fledged help to the injured wild cetaceans, their treatment and subsequent release into the wild. It will be located in the Imeretinsky port, which is sufficiently deep and safe. The top executives of the Imeretinsky Resort understand the significance of the project and are ready to provide part of the port water area free of charge. A spacious constrain will be created here, one of the sides of which will be open. A dolphin will be able to decide whether it is ready to swim into the open sea or still needs time to prepare for a life out in the freedom of the wild. There will also be a quarantine pool and a medical laboratory in the center, where the necessary veterinary procedures can be carried out. Some money has already been collected, and it will be enough to install a temporary constrain that can be disassembled and transported.
- What is Delfa doing now, while the money for the stationary center has not been collected yet?
- First of all, we opened a hotline where you can report about dead or wounded dolphins. There have been quite a lot of calls, and in May 2018, we decided to conduct dolphin rescue trainings for the Sochi volunteers. We also had the support of the Imeretinsky Resort in this. About 100 volunteers were trained, many of them became our active assistants. There were increasingly more calls and letters coming from the entire coastal territory of the Krasnodar Territory, people reported about the dolphins and wanted to know how they could help these marine mammals. We realized that we could no longer cope with this on our own, so, we filed an application and our educational project, the ‘Dolphins of the Black Sea’, won the contest held by the Presidential Grants Foundation. Thanks to the presidential grant, we provided a series of large-scale trainings in different cities to assist cetaceans. Those were three-day workshops where we told the theory and honed the necessary skills using a dolphin rescue manikin on the shore and in shallow water. We also conducted veterinary training sessions for those who have a special education or have an in-depth knowledge. In addition to Sochi, the training sessions were also held in other coastal cities of the Krasnodar Territory - Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik, Anapa, Tuapse, on the Taman Peninsula in the village of Volna, as well as in Moscow for the students of the veterinary faculties. In total, about 600 people participated in the training sessions, over 100 of them became Delfa volunteers.
- What do the volunteers do?
- Over a year and a half of work, the volunteers and Delfa employees managed to save eight dolphins. Cetaceans were freed from fish stakes at sea. Unfortunately, such happy results are rare. More often, messages about dead dolphins come to the hotline. When we receive a message about a dead marine mammal, our volunteers arrive at the place. They make dolphin measurements, take the necessary photos, take biological samples that help determine the cause of death. Most often, dolphins die by fishing nets, as deep scratches or cuts on their body indicate. When the dolphins entangled with fish nets, fishermen simply cut their fins off from a dead dolphin so as not to spoil the fish nets, and sometimes they tear open their stomach so that the dolphin’s body does not float to the surface. Since April 2018, we have recorded 360 dead dolphins. As practice has shown, almost all of those who found dead dolphins did not know what to do. That is why we have prepared special guidelines telling how to assist cetaceans and what to do when you found a dead dolphin, it is available to everyone free of charge. These training guidelines became the next stage in the implementation of the project ‘The Dolphins of the Black Sea’. In addition to helping cetaceans and collecting statistical information, the Delfa staff and volunteers monitor dolphins in the open sea. They also regularly organize cleaning of wild beaches during the ‘Clean Black Sea’ campaigns.
- And what should be done when you see a dead or wounded dolphin?
- People sometimes just don’t understand that the dolphin is sick and has approached the shore to die, or because it is not strong enough to be at a depth any more. They surround it, hug it, stroke and kiss it, which is an extreme stress to the animal. They also try to immediately take the dolphin to the depths. This should not be done. Sometimes, a dolphin can be helped by simply gently supporting it in the water, giving it the opportunity to catch its breath, rest, recover, one should wait until it swims to the sea. However, the support must be provided correctly. Sometimes this is not enough, they need an urgent help from a veterinarian or an experienced rescuer to remove dehydration, make an injection, and etc. If you find a dead dolphin, you also should neither throw it into the water, nor on the scrap-heap, nor bury it near the beach. Please phone our center (8 9388881595) and the hotline of the city administration to call in a special service for the disposal of the biological waste. This must be done for health reasons as dead dolphins can be sick, and cetacean pathogens can also cause disease in humans.
