This page is part of the History of Animal Training and Behavior Analysis section.
People have been interacting with dolphins for centuries. However, systematic and large scale dolphin training did not really begin until the 20th century. Many early dolphin trainers, who worked for marine mammal parks or for government projects, were trained by Keller Breland and Marian Breland, of Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE).
Bailey & Gillaspy (2005) write that:
"ABE operant methods spread to marine mammal and bird training in the 1950s and 1960s. The Brelands contracted with Marine Studios (Marine Studios, 1955, 1956), Marineland of the Pacific (Marineland of the Pacific, 1956), Parrot Jungle (Parrot Jungle, 1957), and the U.S. Navy (U.S. Naval Ordnance Test Station, 1962, 1963a, 1963b, 1963c, 1964) to develop training programs and animal shows. The first author has firsthand knowledge of the Brelands' contribution to the U.S. Navy's Marine Mammal Program (see Figure 4). He was the Navy's Director of Training from 1962 until 1965....In 1955, the Brelands wrote perhaps the first manual for training dolphins using operant methods (K. Breland, 1955, 1962). The marine mammal training program at Sea World, the world's largest, can be traced back to the Brelands through Kent Burgess, Sea World's first Director of Training, who was trained by Marian and Keller at ABE from 1953 to 1964."
In 1956, Milton Santini founded Santini's Porpoise School in Grassy Key, Florida. Santini was a pioneer in dolphin training and trained Mitzi, an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin who starred in the movie and TV series Flipper. The site has been home to facilities for dolphin research and training continuously since the 1950s. Currently, the site houses the Dolphin Research Center, which was founded in 1984. The center conducts research on dolphin behavior, learning and congnition. For more information about the dolphin research center and it's history, see their website, here.
The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program was founded in 1960. This program trained and studied the use of marien mammals for military use, including ship protection, harbor protection, mine detection, and equipment recovery. See here for a brief history of the Navy's Marine Mammal Program.
More information:
The youtube channel for the Aquatic Mammal's Journal features historical perspective interviews with over 30 early marine mammal trainers. Their website, as well, features a list of historical perspective articles, many of which relate to training.
