Dolphin Quest Facilities Have Roots in The Plains

Dolphin Quest Facilities Have Roots in The Plains

“Everything we do is made possible because we first build a foundation based on trust and mutual respect,” said Dr. Stone. “It’s about let’s have some fun today. What are we going to explore and learn today? That type of creative relationship allows for lots of exploration with guests, visiting scientists, and with each other so that every day is less regimented and more enriching.”

By Louisa Woodville

Tourists who visit Hawaii or Bermuda and swim with dolphins there often cite this experience as a highlight. Bottle-nose dolphins with names such as Reef, Kona, and Pele, flip, swim and dive in large lagoons embellished with waterfalls and rocks.

“There’s something magical and mystical about a dolphin,” said Dr. Rae Stone of The Plains. “To me part of their beauty is that that they’re so incredibly well adapted to their environment — everything from their echolocation to their locomotion, the way they move in the water is mesmerizingly beautiful.”

Dr. Rae Stone gets up close and personal with the dolphins.

Photo courtesy

Being one of the country’s foremost marine mammal veterinarians, she should know. Dr. Stone created Dolphin Quest in 1984 with Dr. Jay Sweeney of San Diego as a bridge between tourism, education and conservation. They provide venues where the public can learn about dolphins and how to protect the marine environments that sustain them.

Visitors often have the opportunity to watch the dolphins voluntarily participate in groundbreaking studies underway by scientists working to solve the growing threats to wild dolphin populations.

My husband Nigel Ogilvie and I visited Dolphin Quest in Oahu three years ago. Arriving at the Kahala site, we were briefed by staff. They explained that each day, it’s the dolphins’ decision whether to swim and interact, or even to appear with us.

On that particular Tuesday, the dolphins seemed thrilled to play. Kohole was especially fun, his powerful flukes motoring him around, and stopping periodically for a belly rub. Then off he’d go, jumping for joy—or at least that’s how it seemed to me. The experience underscored the teeming, vibrant life that lives in the seas, and the crucial steps needed to prevent oceanic destruction.

That’s also part of Dolphin Quest’s mission. The dolphins, Dr. Stone said, are not here for the public’s amusement but rather to further a connection that will motivate people to help reduce pollution, marine debris, and overfishing, as well as manage climate change. All are real threats to wild dolphins.

Dolphin Quest’s origins began in land-locked Scottsdale, Arizona, where Dr. Stone and her husband, Dr. Kent Allen, practiced veterinary medicine after graduating from the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine in Columbia. Dr. Allen developed one of the largest referral equine practices in the southwest. He now maintains the Virginia Equine Imaging practice at their BrightWood farm in The Plains they share with their son Forrest.

Dr. Stone’s original practice entailed traveling to treat patients in her mobile veterinary unit. “It was a really fun and personal way to provide veterinary care to small animals,” she said. “I had a 26-foot custom van that had an exam room and anesthesia and everything I needed. I could do x-rays and could even do surgery there. I was practicing all over Scottsdale.”

In the early 1980s, however, she received an unusual request.

“I was asked to provide local veterinary services for this collection of three dolphins and five sea lions,” she said. “I said okay, if you’ll send me somewhere to study and learn about them.”

She chose to work with leading specialist Dr. Jay Sweeney at Marineland of the Pacific in Palos Verdes California, to learn about marine mammals and their care.

Dr. Stone soon made a name for herself thanks to an emerging technology that her husband pioneered in diagnosing horses’ lameness—ultrasound. It was a game-changer in the sphere of dolphin preventive medicine and research, especially natal development.

“Kent’s equine referral hospital in Arizona had one of the first ultrasound units in the southwest, in the early 1980s,” Dr. Stone said.” Nobody had ever done ultrasound on a dolphin before. I was able to take his equipment to Marineland in California to develop some of the original applications of diagnostic ultrasound on dolphins.”

As leaders in marine mammal science, scientific study, and animal management, Drs. Stone and Sweeney pondered how to create a place where scientists could study dolphins in a more natural habitat, optimally financed by tourism. The initiative had to be both scientifically driven and fiscally sustainable. Wheels started turning.

“On a flight to Takoma to treat a walrus, Jay [Sweeney] and I started talking about how we’d like to see dolphins displayed if we could do it any way we wanted,” she said. “We started drawing our vision on a paper napkin at 30,000 feet in the air. And so Dolphin Quest was born.”

An optimal habitat, they knew, would consist of natural salt water lagoons of varying depths, filled with

marine life, just like dolphins’ natural environment— an ocean-water sea sanctuary. They also envisioned programs where people could learn about the animals in a more intimate personal way where they could make a real connection, as an alternative to acrobatic shows, the norm at the time.

It took four years, but finally they created the optimum setting. The Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Big Island of Hawaii opened in 1988, with a saltwater, sandy-beached tidal lagoon housing eight dolphins. Dolphin Quest has since added sites at the Kahala Hotel & Resort on Oahu; and in Bermuda’s National Museum. As a result of successful reproduction Dolphin Quest now cares for 31 dolphins.

“When our dolphins became pregnant, I traveled every month to Hawaii and did ultrasound exams on four pregnancies from conception to birth,” she said. “The animals didn’t even need to leave the water to be imaged. These measurements helped us publish the first fetal growth charts for bottle-nosed dolphins.” The techniques Dr. Stone developed are now used to study the impact of oil spills on wild dolphin reproduction. Dolphin Quest now provides support and funding for scientists who collaborate with the dolphins’ caretakers on critically important studies that could not be done in the wild.

“Dolphin Quest is managed by people who know these animals and love them and are there to promote marine conservation,” Dr. Stone said. Dolphins receive top veterinary care and nutrition, not to mention lots of love and attention from marine mammal specialists.

“Everything we do is made possible because we first build a foundation based on trust and mutual respect,” said Dr. Stone. “It’s about let’s have some fun today. What are we going to explore and learn today? That type of creative relationship allows for lots of exploration with guests, visiting scientists, and with each other so that every day is less regimented and more enriching.”

A critical component of Dolphin Quest is preserving oceans and aquatic habitats. Between 80-90 percent of fish stocks in the world are either threatened or endangered—or will be in the next 10 years—according to many scientists. Ascertaining how dolphins in the future will find enough to eat and how much they need are critically important questions.

“How can we design policies and marine sanctuaries or protection of fishing policies if we don’t even know how much energy it costs to be a dolphin in the wild?” said Dr. Stone, also an avid equestrian and currently president of the Orange County Hounds Conservation Foundation.

“The reality is, the environmental pressures on our oceans are only increasing. And we can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s knowledge, let alone tomorrow’s problems. I think it all comes down to building relationships of trust and respect.”

Especially listening to what dolphins and oceans and other fish have to say.