Article from: Weekly Times Now
Muir's dolphin life
| May 4, 2011
Making waves: Judy Muir, who runs Polperro Dolphin Swims, says dolphins are not a form of therapy.
JUDY Muir can attest to the often profound effects when humans encounter wild dolphins, SARAH HUDSON reports
Dolphins converge from all directions, dorsal fins slicing the water.
A pod of five frolic around wetsuit-clad swimmers, rolling on their backs in a playful display of their bellies, twisting and dancing, coming within centimetres of one man.
"Whoo-hoo," shouts the man, "awesome".
Welcome to a day in the life of Judy Muir, who has run Polperro Dolphin Swims from Sorrento for 24 years, the first to operate in Port Phillip Bay.
In those years, she has seen the spectrum of human emotions.
"It's not uncommon for people to cry when they swim with the dolphins," Judy says.
"They find it so profound they come out of the water with tears streaming down their face.
"Just yesterday a man told me it was a life-changing experience for him.
"I've even had people from spiritual groups. One group believed dolphins were incarnated from the planet Sirius.
"Others have smiles from the sheer joy of being eye to eye with an animal in their environment and on their terms."
Then there are the people who come with ailments and illnesses, hoping their interactions with the marine mammals will provide some kind of curative: children with autism, sufferers of cancer, the disabled.
But, according to Judy, dolphins do not and cannot heal.
While dolphin-assisted therapy - the concept that the creatures have healing powers - gained traction in the US with a series of studies, Judy says it's a myth.
"That link is an obscure connection that has now, for some, become a mantra. We want to dispel this myth - we are averse to promoting the species as a cure for people," she says.
What she can guarantee is a sense of achievement.
"Doctors say if you feel good then your immune system is immediately enhanced," Judy says. "So yes, people are challenged by being in deep, open water and there's an increased sense of accomplishment and wellbeing from that, but no, it's not a therapy."
Today, watching the bottlenose dolphins gather around the Polperro, coming and going in large numbers for several hours, the most remarkable thing is their curiosity, their attraction to the boat and their willingness to even bother with us humans.
After all, they are never fed or even touched. They come, quite simply, because they want to.
"They are just as curious about us as we are of them. They're just like tourists," Judy says.
She says after countless thousands of dolphin swims she never fails to be amazed by Mother Nature.
And it is this respect and awe she hopes swimmers leave with.
"Our idea is to educate people about the vibrant ecology rather than exploit the species or assist in psychological care," she says.
Strangely enough, Judy, who grew up in Black Rock on the bay, started out as an opponent of dolphin swims.
After a stint as a diving charter boat, the Polperro - and Judy and her husband, Tony - were hired in 1986 as a research vessel by the-then new Hastings Dolphin Research Institute.
The institute wanted to start dolphin swims. Judy was initially not happy with the concept and fought it.
"We asked the (Victorian) Government to stop it (the swims)," Judy says.
"I've always been very clear about the ethics and I never wanted to put the species at risk."
The swims were allowed to go ahead.
And in a case of "if you can't beat them, join them", Judy decided to start her own dolphin swims.
In parallel she lobbied to regulate the industry - and has been at the forefront of the battle to protect dolphins ever since.
Ten years of lobbying paid off and her work helped ensure amendments to the Wildlife Act that saw such regulations as a maximum of four dolphin-swim licensed operators allowed in the bay and no more than 10 people in the water at any time.
On no account are dolphins - which number fewer than 100 in the bay - allowed to be touched, fed, pursued or enticed in any way.
Despite these regulations, Judy is now concerned for the long-term viability of dolphins in the bay, thanks to the boom in tourism and recreational boating.
"When I look at what we've done here in 24 years I think we have done more good than harm," she says.
"I think there's now an awareness of the importance of the bay.
"Each morning I can't wait to get out of bed ... it's a wonderful sense of freedom doing this. I have an overwhelming sense of nature being so giving, so enormous, so incredibly wonderful, yet at the same time being so incredibly fragile."
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