Get ready to take a deep dive into the history of dolphins and the importance they have in our ecosystem in this session’s installment of Documentaries for Teens, where I review documentaries for you, the teens! Today, we will be reviewing Dolphins: Is our love too deep? So grab your fins and snorkels, and let’s jump in!
Dolphins: Is our love too deep? Serves as an essay on dolphins, how they have been revered in our human history, and how we humans are making waves in theirs by causing dysfunction in their ecosystem by hand-feeding them at Monkey Mia.
Monkey Mia, Shark Bay, Australia, has been a popular venue for watching dolphins hunt for centuries. Darren Capewell, Founder of Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Cultural Adventures and Aboriginal tribe member, states that his ancestors fished with dolphins off this cove for 30,000 years, and now, the Australian government is allowing troves of tourists to hand-feed dolphins, causing a domino that biologist Janet Mann and her team are trying to keep up with.
Even though hand-feeding might seem harmless, we are actually red-handed at causing strain in the ecosystem by “helping” these mammals feast on procured fish. And the effects are starting to weigh heavily on the scales. (You thought I wouldn’t make a fish pun? It’s my porpoise!)
Overall, I really enjoyed this documentary. It was very informative, and it was very good at posing the question: is there any space for human interaction with wild animals? I also loved the cast of dolphins we met throughout this film, especially the mom-and-daughter duo; Surprise and Shock.
