The Dolphin Habitat at the Mirage is no illusion
The Dolphin Habitat at the Mirage is a Las Vegas attraction of a different species: Tursiops Truncatus, to be exact, otherwise known as Atlantic bottlenose dolphins.
Six of the beautiful, gentle creatures, including three generations of one family, live at the habitat, which was constructed nearly 20 years ago at an initial cost of $20 million in a tropical setting behind the hotel.
The Mirage habitat, rated as one of the top in the world, encompasses four connecting pools that hold a total of about 2.5 million gallons of manmade salt water.
Its purpose? To provide a healthy and nurturing sanctuary for the dolphins as a research and breeding facility, and to educate the public about marine mammals and their environment.
“The grand schemes is to keep these animals healthy and content so that they will reproduce readily and have healthy calves,” says Dave Blasko, the hotel’s director of animal care. The Mirage "has been successful in artificial insemination with dolphins in both the U.S. and Europe" and is now studying how dolphins communicate through chemicals.
Each of the dolphins at the Mirage has a name, its own physical characteristics and personality.
There is 33-year-old, 470-pound Duchess, the “queen” of the habitat and the only one of the original dolphins at the Mirage facility, which opened in October 1990. Her daughter, Huf N Puf, born March 7, 2000, is the mother of Bella, the newest addition to the Mirage family, who was born in September 2008 weighing in at 20 pounds.
Duchess is also the mother of Maverick, 6, and Sgt. Pepper, who turned 2 in June 2009. Then there is 450-pound Lightning, 30, who was brought to the Mirage from Florida three years ago and is the father of both Bella and Sgt. Pepper.
Guests can observe the playful mammals interacting with each other and with their trainers in both above- and below-water viewing. There are no shows or performances, but trainers use whistles and hand signals to prompt the dolphins to display natural behaviors such as jumping, flipping, spinning, breaching, fluke waving and tail walking.
The staff will also throw toys into the water — big balls, giant beach balls half-filled with water, basketballs, hoops and Frisbees — and let the dolphins choose their toys. The playful creatures will often engage in a game of chase or steal a ball from one another. They particularly enjoy carrying, pushing and tossing objects about.
- by Bobbie Katz, Las Vegas Reporter for HelloMetro
(Click to leave a message)
