Archive: Mar 2014

Dolphin Quest Oahu (DQO) presented a new training concept, Wait & Go, at the prestigious International Marine Animal Trainers’ Association conference in 2013. The Wait & Go game involves a series of three hand signals. The first signal cues the start of the game and asks the dolphin to wait for additional information. The trainer then gives a second hand signal for a previously trained behavior, such as a pectoral flipper wave. The dolphin doesn’t move, and continues to wait until he sees the third signal, which means go and perform the behavior. While learning the “rules” of the game, the wait proved more challenging for the dolphins. They know more than 100 hand signals and for years have performed a behavior immediately after seeing its signal. Trainers made sure to reward the dolphins for waiting as well as going,…

Dolphin Quest’s expert animal behaviorists do an amazing job training our dolphins, but do you wonder if fish can be trained? At Dolphin Quest Hawaii, we are working on some amazing fish training in our new tide pool habitat. Right now, we have a gorgeous porcupine puffer fish, a very hungry snapper, a couple of lined butterfly fish, and some very cool goat fish that are all learning new behaviors. Just like the dolphins, training fish starts with trust. Our multispecies trainers work day in and day out to make sure the fish trust them enough to approach them. From there, the relationship allows our trainers to teach the fish to stay in one place, feed from their hands, come when called (“recall”), and so much more! All of this has one common goal: to allow us to better take care…