Editor's Note: Stefan Korshak was one of the Kyiv Post's legendary reporters. He could cover anything -- wars, economy, politics. But he had a fondness for animal stories. And one of them, headlined: "Dolphins find new porpoise: No longer useful as living torpedoes, Black Sea dolphins turn to show business" is about the Sudak Dolphinarium in Crimea. Published on Aug. 5, 1999, it's another of the many Kyiv Post classics.
Some regret the Cold War’s end. Yasha the dolphin isn’t one of them.
Yasha’s mission, if a third World War did break out, would have been to swim to a NATO warship and blow it and himself up with explosives strapped to his head.
Fortunately, the Soviet Union imploded before Yasha could earn any posthumous medals for heroism. Today, the bottlenose bull has embarked on a more upbeat career path: show business.
“The techniques of dolphin training are essentially the same, no matter what task you want him to accomplish,” said Dr. Aleksander Zaniny, director of the Sudak Dolphinarium. “The key is comprehending dolphin psychology, and then working within those parameters.”
Or, in layman’s terms, a dolphin practically always wants a fish, and is smart enough to use his brains to get it.
In 1966, Zaniny helped found the marine-mammal research center, the largest of three built on the Black Sea coast during Soviet times. It remains a state-owned enterprise in this town of 10,000 people.
Marine biologists at Sudak and neighboring installations at Evpatoria and Sevastopol were researching cetacean biology and behavior, but steered clear of the possible military applications of their study.
“We never trained dolphins to attack American aircraft carriers,” said Zaniny. “What we did, and do, was train dolphins to perform certain tasks, and then give them over to specialists for use in the field.”
Still, the Soviet Union’s marine-mammal researchers focused in those early days on training a dolphin to locate or carry heavy objects underwater, Zaniny conceded. Drafting dolphins was easy. The Black Sea’s jack mackerel schools have fed for millennia in the river deltas formed by Ukraine’s dense river system. Dolphins, true to their basic psychological trait, eat the mackerel.
Scientists believe that up to 8 million porpoises and dolphins swam the Black Sea 50 years ago. But populations have shrunk drastically with drag-net fishing and industrial pollution. “No one really knows how many are left today,” said Andrei Bezushenko, marine biologist. “Probably less than 100,000, no more.”
A team of Ukrainian border officers and marine biologists tracking a dozen trawlers in 1998 counted 70 net-drowned dolphins over a single fishing season. “If you are counting Romanian, Turkish, and home-grown poachers, there’s probably 2,000 boats putting out nets each year,” Bezushenko said.
Dolphins lucky enough to wind up in Soviet captivity back in the 1960s faced other problems. Initially half the captured dolphins died, sickening by everything from dirty water to fatal bacterial infections.
“We made the water cleaner, installed filters and better pumps,” Zaniny said. “We developed vaccines…even today, we still buy all of our dolphins’ medicine at the neighborhood pharmacy.”
Virtually all – 98 percent – of Black Sea dolphins captured today survive in captivity. The political upheavals of the late 20th century have not left the lives of Ukraine’s domestic dolphins unchanged.
Kamikaze training formally stopped in 1987 because of reduced defense budgets and the notion that a dolphin torpedo, compelling as the idea is, has its drawbacks. Dolphins don’t normally swim in the murky shallow water common to harbors where aircraft carriers park.
Also, NATO warships have thick hulls, resistant to underwater explosions made by small mines. Big warheads, even with the best of intentions, are not something dolphins can easily deliver.
Dolphins swim fast, 30 knots at a burst, not just from strength and streamlining, but because of the near perfect balance that their bodies achieve in seawater. Strap a mass to the end of a three-meter dolphin, and the weight distribution shifts dramatically.
“Tie a 10-kilo rock to your own neck,” Bezushenko said. “Then see how well you can swim. Same thing with dolphins.”
So now Yasha – a retired naval secret weapon – is a big summer-resort star, performing for tourists twice daily, three times on weekends.
The Sudak Dolphinarium has put on dolphin shows since the 1970s, in part as a nice sideshow for children, but also as a convenient way to keep the dolphins trained. Now, the dolphinarium’s only hope of survival is tourism. Zaniny estimates the Sudak Dolphinarium needs $250,000 to continue all year.
The four shows a day during the summer season bring in 30 percent of the revenues. Entrance costs Hr 4. Families from Moscow and Tver pack the rim of Yasha’s tank, squealing when he lands a particularly big splash.
“We also have income from souvenirs and photos,” Zaniny said. “The entertainment side of the dolphinarium allows us to pay salaries and continue basic research.”
Don’t forget the 12 kilos of fish paid to Yasha and his co-stars daily.
Like all artists, Sudak’s performers are not without personality quirks. Yasha is an 11-year-old male and the dolphinarium’s oldest veteran. He is also a big ham, ready to cut in front of another dolphin, or even horn in on the seal performance. Yasha saves his best efforts for the audiences and, like any star, can be bone lazy during practice, his trainer says.
“If he’s not in the mood, forget it,” said Nadezhda Frolova. “He won’t even accept a fish.”
Yashka, Yasha’s four-year-old mate, tries much harder but gets nervous if she makes a mistake in her routine. Ksenya and Ksusha are the other male-female act at the Sudak Dolphinarium, performing in their own pool.
“Ksenya is extremely smart, he understands exactly what’s going on, and he won’t do a thing unless he sees direct payoff,” Svetlana Zaninaya said. “If he’s not interested, he just ignores you. Ksusha, on the other hand, is a good girl, she always tries hard. But she is also very jealous, and doesn’t like it when we pay attention to Ksenya.”
The Post approached Ksenya, relaxing between performances, for comment. The Black Sea native responded in squeaks and squawks. By all appearances, he wanted a fish.
