Swimming with captive dolphins: current debates and post-experience dissonance
✍ Scribed by Susanna Curtin; Keith Wilkes
- Book ID
- 102444479
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2007
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 192 KB
- Volume
- 9
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1099-2340
- DOI
- 10.1002/jtr.599
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
Dolphins have widespread contemporary appeal and anthropomorphic social representations of dolphins have fuelled a growing desire in tourist populations to seek interaction with them. This paper is concerned with the staged performance of swim‐with‐dolphin interaction programmes in aquaria. Qualitative interviews with tourists who have swum with captive dolphins identified their immediate recollections and stressed the grace, size and power of dolphins, but also a belief that the experience was too staged, too short and too expensive. Post‐purchase dissonance focused on concerns with the size of enclosures and about captivity, too many tricks, limited interpretation and unfulfilled expectations of a quality interaction. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.