The dolphins at the Port Elizabeth Oceanarium at Bayworld was synonymous with Port Elizabeth for a very long time until the last two, Domino and Dumisa, was moved to a Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Although they were moved there in 2009 already there are still out of town visitors that come to the city asking if there are dolphin shows. This post isn't about keeping dolphins in captivity, doing dolphin presentations or part of a debate whether we should have dolphins in PE again. The post is about remembering Dolly and Domino who put PE on the map in many ways and shows footage from a show dating back to 2003 courtesy of John Sweet's YouTube channel.
Now that takes me back... I remember the dolphins at the Oceanarium being Dolly, Dolfie and Dimple when I was at school, and I remember the excitement of the baby dolphins being born. I have such mixed feelings about the dolphins now - on the one hand they helped to educate generations of PE school kids about ceteceans, but on the other hand the cruelty of capturing wild dolphins and forcing them to live their lives in that little pool horrifies me now. I guess it's just another relic from the times that we all grew up in, in an unrecognisably different world.
ReplyDeleteWow! this is taking me back to my primary school memories..
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