Customer Reviews

To Free a Dolphin

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The author, former trainer for dolphins starring on the much beloved Flipper tv series, details his struggle with big industry while he tries to return dolphins to the wild. There is a big trial in which the author loses a sizable civil fine for his liberation activities. He still has a let's get on with life joie de vivre about him. O'Barry's life is the stuff of drama and he's a modern day David in the eternal struggle with Goliath, in this case the captivity industry.

This book provides a first-person perspective on what started as a noble attempt to obtain captive dolphins and rehabilitate them for release into the wild. Ric O'Barry has developed a credible methodology for teaching dolphins to be dolphins again. He participated in the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary, and the book gives some idea of how at least some humans kind of lost sight of the main purpose of SDS, leading to something of a disaster. Those who enjoy this book will likely also enjoy a fictional book about dolphins, Ocean Echoes: A Dolphin Tale, by Shaney Frey (Seastory Press, ISBN-13: 978-0982115114). Shaney Frey is mentioned briefly in O'Barry's book (in fact, she was the only witness for O'Barry's defense in a trial described in the book), and O'Barry wrote the forward for Shaney Frey's book.

Wow, this book is great! All I have to say is, if you are the kind of person who doesn't care if their tuna fish is Dolphin Safe, you might not care enough about dolphins to read the whole book. But if you care about your fellow animals, this is a good book to read. I went out and immediately started freeing dolphins. I have freed only 4 so far, but that was not my fault as my dolphin-freeing career was cut short when one of the buggers bit me in the leg and I had to retire from my Project.

And another thing. Disney makes all these movies about whales, whales, whales. Free Willy. Free Willy 2. Free Willy 33 1/3. Well, don't THEY care about freeing dolphins? NO! Why? Because they're all about making money! And studies show that young kids would rather cuddle a plush killer whale than a plush dolphin! It's the merchandising.

Anyway, after reading this review you should be ready to buy my^D^D the book and free some dolphins. After all, fish are people too!