Volunteers at Monkey Mia DOLPHIN Resort

Friday 10^th October – Wednesday 15^th October

We had our induction about the dolphins in Monkey Mia and how a normally working day is there. Monkey Mia is located in Shark Bay World Heritage, which is one of the most popular tourism destinations in Western Australia. Visitors come from all over the world, to experience the wild encounters with the dolphins. 

The dolphins visit the beach every day, and five specific female dolphins are offered fish three times daily. The feeding times are up to the dolphins. There are days when they don’t visit the beach, however those days are rare. The rangers constantly have an eye on the beach and report to us (the volunteers) which dolphins are in the area. We write the times and the dolphins names in the diary. There’s about 1600 dolphins in the bay and surprisingly enough, the rangers can tell the difference on most of them. 

In the office where we are, there’s a thick book with pictures with dorsal fins and about 200 different of them. They are the ones visiting the beach regularly. All dolphins have marks or rakes from either boat propellers and/or shark bites. 

When the rangers discover that some of the five dolphins we feed, are in the area, we start an experience. That means we have 25 min. to prepare the fish for the dolphins, while the rangers gather the visitors on the beach and tell them the history behind the dolphin project in Monkey Mia. 

The indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin story started in 1950’s, when local fishermen began sharing their catch with some local dolphins, which followed them into the inshore area. The dolphins continued to follow the fishermen, and when the jetty was built they began to seek hand-outs. 

In 1964 a lady hand fed a dolphin from her boat and soon the feeding became a routine for the dolphins. Over the years the dolphins grew trust to humans and with time, also got fish from the beach, by locals and visitors. As a result to that, the dolphins lost their wild instincts and their ability to hunt. The calves of some overfed dolphins starved to death because of neglect by their mothers. 

The public feeding was stopped immediately, when this was discovered, and today the dolphins are only fed under strict supervision of Departments of Parks and Wildlife officers (rangers). 

They only get a small amount of fish from us, actually only a snack between 300-500g per feeding. That keeps the dolphins wild. Their average food intake is between 10-12 kg per day. So they are able to support themselves in the environment and hunt naturally, plus they teach their calves the important survival skills. When the rangers have finished their speech, we go down to the beach, with the fish in buckets. 

Sometimes there are only two or three dolphins at a feed, and other times we have all five of them. Again it’s up to the dolphins. We take it as a good sign when they don’t show up. It means that they get enough to eat from their own hunt. 

It was a bit chaotic one of the days, when we had some dolphin males in the area as well. The males are not fed because they tend to be more aggressive towards humans and other dolphins. At this specific feeding, they were interacting with the females and tale slapping in front of the whole crowd, right on the beach. It was quite entertaining, but also a bit dangerous for us in the water. Quickly the males left the feeding area again and we could begin picking people out from the crowd, and invite them to hand feed the dolphins - what everyone is there for!! 

The dolphins are very gentle and nice to us, one of the dolphins are pregnant, at the moment she loves to rub her big belly on our legs, others put their nose between our legs, or push our legs with their fins to swim backwards. We’re not allowed to touch them, but they touch us all the time… It’s amazing! We work 4½ hour per day, and most of that time is spend on preparing the fish and interacting with the dolphins, the rest of the time is almost just spend on relaxing and chatting to the other volunteers.

Shark Bay

A normal day in the parking lot 

The volunteer office

We have each dolphin record and family tree in the office. 

View from the office.. Loved it!

This was the best reason to get early up in the morning

Erik loved having Surprise (the pregnant dolphin)

Piccolo

Pure enjoyment from Piccolo's point of view

See you later Piccolo

While the dolphin feeding is taking place there is one of us volunteers, distracting the pelicans further up on the beach. It’s not at every feeding the pelicans show up, but most of the times we have to be there and entertain them. If we don’t do so, they will steal the dolphins fish and make the experience on the beach difficult for everyone. 

The pelicans know they get a piece of fish from the yellow bucket we bring out, and during the dolphin feeding they sit and stare impatiently, at the yellow bucket. When the dolphin feeding is over, we throw a small piece of fish to each pelican. 

A few times we couldn’t distract them enough, and they flew right down to the dolphin buckets. With help from the rangers, and a tempting fish, the pelicans returned to the yellow bucket. It’s a long time we need to distract them, with JUST a bucket. We don’t want to feed them too much, that will just result in more pelicans coming to the beach, and then they will lose their ability to hunt just as it happend with the dolphins.

In Monkey Mia there is only one resort, and it’s the one and only place with accommodation. An unpowered campsite is $16 each per night. We found that very expensive, but on the other hand, we didn’t pay anything to be in the volunteer program. Most places we know about, charge money, when it’s got wildlife involved. So we were lucky that this was free. 

We were also lucky to be able to work for our accommodation, instead for paying. The working hours were the same whether we stayed at the campground or at the hostel, so we moved into the hostel for three days to get some value out of our shitty work. One day we cleaned their tour bus, the other day we cleaned the ceiling for spider webs in the outdoor area at the restaurant on the beach, and swept the whole outdoor area. 

During the two days we stayed at the campsite, we already got quite annoyed and frustrated over the wild emu’s there. They were stealing food, and we couldn’t sit outside with the back of the car open without an emu sneaking around us and looking in the car for food. They are so use to humans and know where to get easy food. To begin with we found it funny, but when the emus started to attack the dogs around the campsites, and walked into people’s tents, we kind of lost our interest in them. The rangers should start a program with the emus, as they did with the dolphins. The issue is, that they can’t earn money on them!!!

The forbidden emu dance....

I was sitting where the emu stands, seconds before this picture was taken.. They get that close!

The experience and interacting with the dolphins has been amazing and absolutely magnificent. 

We really enjoyed every moment working there, and is thankful for the opportunity we were given. Normally people book the volunteer work well in advance. We were lucky to get on the program just a few days before we arrived. We will never forget those big bright eyes looking up at us, and the natural smile these creatures have, it's nothing less than fantastic. I left a piece of my heart with the dolphins at Shark Bay!

Piccolo (my favorite)


Working With Wild Dolphins Video