Dolphin Boy

HK Magazine: How did you decide to become a dolphin trainer?
Jason Lee: I’ve always loved animals and I knew I wanted to work with them even when I was young. I studied zoology in university and upon graduation I found an opening for dolphin trainers at Ocean Park. They provide great on-the-job training here - you don’t really need any qualifications before you apply except that you need to be a strong swimmer. I also love performing, but since my public-speaking skills aren’t the best, the dolphin show gives me a great opportunity to be on stage in front of thousands of people while only using body language. It’s an incredible rush and a very fulfilling job.

HK: Do you have to keep the males and females apart to control the birth rate?
JL: Yes, they are permanently kept in separate tanks and are only put together when we have specific mating plans for them. Sometimes we use artificial insemination so they don’t have to be placed together at all. They’re separated even during the shows, so for each show we either have an all-male cast or an all-female cast.

HK: I’ve heard that dolphins are the only other animals apart from humans that have sex for pleasure. How do they cope with the fact that they can’t have sex when they want?
JL: Haha, what do you think? It’s true that dolphins, like humans, need intimacy to maintain relationships, so a lot of our male dolphins just end up having sex with each other. I guess we’ve forced them to become gay dolphins then...

HK: Do they throw tantrums, or refuse to perform sometimes?
JL: Most of the time they’re pretty good about it because, like me, they love performing too! Sometimes, though, if one dolphin is not in the mood to perform, he’ll try to persuade the other dolphins to swim away with him and play hooky together. When that happens, we have to try and distract the other dolphins and tell them not to listen to the naughty one.

HK: Do dolphins get stage fright?
JL: Before a dolphin goes out for its first show, we make sure that he or she gets trained to face an audience so they don’t get scared. We get a bunch of people to stand in the audience and yell and whistle so they get used to the noise. Dolphins are good at recognizing faces and sounds, so when they see strangers, they could get frightened. We even have to train them to not be afraid of their vets, since most of them are Caucasians and none of the trainers are. We’ll have dress-up days when we put on white lab coats and blond wigs and speak in English to them.

HK: Has being a dolphin trainer helped you attract more girls?
JL: Well, actually it has, and it goes for guys as well! I suppose my occupation becomes an interesting topic of conversation most of the time. A lot of girls think dolphins are cute, so I guess being their trainer makes me cute too.