Ricou Browning being cast for his costume for Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Ricou Browning almost entirely in costume.
The 'gill man' poses menacingly.
The idea to get a trainer in to teach the dolphins tricks came from back when the dolphin displays were just feedings. One one occasion, a dolphin leapt up to catch a fish and the audience went wild.
Adolf Frohn training Flippy from his boat.
Adolf Frohn (right) tending to Flippy the dolphin.
Moby the 'Educated" Pilot Whale having his teeth inspected at Marine Studios.
Flippy the Educated "Porpoise" rings his bell.
Flippy tows his co-stars for the big finale of the show.
A pencil drawing of Elomeryx, a 55 million-year-old ancestor of modern dolphins.
Kutchicetus minimus, an early whale from the middle Eocene of India. This had been subject to around 10 million years of life in the ocean at this point. You can see its nostrils are still at the tip of the snout. That's about to change.
The unfortunately named Basilosaurus isis was around about 35 million years ago. The back legs are gone, the tail is in place and the nostrils are halfway up the head. This beast had been adapting to sea life for around 20 million years.
A Basilosaurus isis skull. Note the position of the nostrils, they aren't on the end of the snout, they're that little indent halfway along the top of the snout.
A modern dolphin skull. The nostrils are firmly in the middle of the forehead. I guess at this point I should say blowhole. Check out that homodont dentition too! All the teeth are the same shape and size, which is highly unusual for a mammal.
The vestigial leg bones of a bowhead whale. A is the shoulder blade, B is the forelimb and C is the remnants of the leg bones of their dog-like ancestors.
A simplified guide to the diversity of whales on Earth today. The filter feeders are facing right and the toothed whales are facing left.
One of the Flipper Dolphins kept at Miami SeaQuarium.
A young Ric O'Barry training Cathy, one of the five dolphins that played Flipper. He turned against the captive industry after her tragic death, which he chalks up to suicide.
Dr John Lilly mid-experiment during his absolutely bananas investigation into dolphin brains.
The 1978 Hustler article about Margaret Howe Lovett's "love affair" with Peter the dolphin.
Dr John Lilly's human deprivation tank design, in which he spent many hours tripping his toes off on LSD.
Dolly the dolphin doing her job to entertain visitors at Floridaland.
A dolphin being trained with a target pole. Location unknown, but looks utterly grim. The image's original eyeroll-worthy description read - "The dolphin must hit the red dot on the target, and gets a fish. When he doesn't, he don't get the fish and gets ignored. It's all about keeping the dolphin in shape!"
The kind of painful and physically demanding tricks dolphins all over the world have no choice but to do multiple times a day.
This one really speaks for itself.
Me working with a male harbour seal called Svante at the Fjord & Baelt centre in Kerteminde, Denmark.
Here I am with a female harbour porpoise named Sif. Please note, hair-wise I was going through a phase.
My favourite image of all time. It's me with my best dolphin friend, Trixie.
A rare photograph of me close to my highest weight of 335 lb (152 kg).
My first progress picture. I was three months and 30 lb (13.5 kg) from my goal weight.
My physique today.
The side of my physique today.
One of three loose skin removal surgeries I had after my extreme weight loss.
This was after six weeks of recovery, the scars have faded to almost nothing now.
All 10 currently recognised orca ecotypes.
An orca calf in the first few weeks, if not days, of life.
Known wild orca territory (in orange).
How scientists recognise individual orcas. This is a female called L77 photographed in September 2021.
Note the tall straight dorsal fin in this male known as T128, caught on camera in May 2021.
A wild orca pod co-ordinating to swim in formation. These hunters aren't messing around.
The largest orca pool in the world at Marineland D'Antibes. All four of the orca family were born here but are about to be split up and sold to Japanese aquariums.
Kiska, nicknamed 'The Loneliest Orca in the World'. She lost all five of the babies she birthed in captivity in infancy.
Keiko performing to a packed house at Reino Aventura, Mexico
The makers of Free Willy mapped out a 3D model of an orca in order to build two different animatronics to be used in the film.
One of the robot orcas was just a top-piece for overhead shots that could be controlled remotely to swim around the pool.
This was the first time a full-size swimming animatronic had been created since the production of Jaws in 1975.
The finished product had a 200 horsepower engine and weighed 3 tons. It was so realistic, Keiko got aroused when he first met the animatronic.
Captive orcas suffer extreme tooth wear. Their teeth break and leave painful open holes. There's not enough to do so in the tank so they chew on their enclosure.
The star of Free Willy about to be loaded into a plane nicknamed 'The Keiko Express' to return him to Icelandic waters after decades of captivity.
Keiko's sea pen in Klettsvik Bay, Iceland.
Keiko's extremely small pool lying empty at Reino Aventura. It has since housed smaller dolphins but is now permanently closed.
Keiko breaching after being set free into the North Atlantic.
Keiko had spent so much of his life with humans, even once he'd been let go he would approach people to say hi or try and play.
Protests against cetacean captivity at Windsor Safari Park, one of the last UK facilities to give up their dolphins.
Public protests against whale captivity continue around the world with big facilities like SeaWorld being named and shamed.
A ticket for a British travelling dolphin show. UK aquariums took their dolphins on tour in the winter, performing in swimming pools up and down the country to make more money.
Two bottlenose dolphins perform at Maindeep Baths in Newport, Wales over Christmas, 1983. Note the depth - two metres (six feet). These dolphins can reach twice that length.
Performing dolphins at Flamingoland in the UK. A jarring sight for those of use that grew up after the cetacean captivity ban.
A news report about the first orca arriving in Europe. Cuddles was shipped to Flamingoland in November 1968.
A chillingly light-hearted take on the process of removing animals from the wild, shipping them around the world then suffering in captivity.
An orca performing at Windsor Safari Park.
The official (and stupid) title of this organisation was 'The North Sea World Training Dolphins School'.
Peter Bloom, my old boss, poses with one of the Clacton orcas. He and his father Reg trained them and the other animals at the "school".
The four orcas held at the facility of Clacton pier lived in a shallow repurposed public swimming pool.
Russia's 'whale jail' where captured young belugas and orcas are stored before being sold to marine parks.
The animals have since been freed, but some suffered irreversible damage during their abduction.
The number of dolphins currently in captivity across 10 nations. Please be aware the 10 countries with figures are not the only ones with captive dolphins, just the biggest hitters.
An audience waits in anticipation for a spectacular dolphin show at an aquarium in China, seen in the documentary 'China: Caging the Ocean's Wild'.
Another still from the documentary. This is just one of a pile of frozen dead dolphins whose bodies succumbed to the physical demands of performances.
At around the eight-minute mark the documentary shows what they call the 'death pools'. Sick animals are left in shallow water to die in the dark.
Hugo and Lolita performing together at Miami Seaquarium in the 1970s. Both whales were captured from the wild.
Hugo died after 12 years in captivity, throughout which he constantly intentionally harmed himself.
Namu, the first orca to be put in captivity and survive. Here he is at Seattle Marine Aquarium.
Ted Griffin owned Seattle Marine Aquarium and bought Namu to boost ticket sales. He soon turned his hand to hunting orcas and selling them to other facilities.
Ted and his fellow whale hunters were known to kill the adults to get to the babies, who were lighter to transport and easier to train.
Ted Griffin captured female Shamu to keep Namu company, but he died after a year at the aquarium. Shamu was sold off to a little up-and-coming marine park called SeaWorld.
SeaWorld's presentations have got much flashier over the years, but the cruelty is just the same.
Southwest Airlines painted planes to promote SeaWorld Entertainment Inc throughout a 25-year relationship that ended in 2014.
SeaWorld trainer cuddles with an orca during a show in 2005. She would be killed by a male orca called Tilikum on 24th February, 2010.
Tilikum is one of the largest orcas ever held in captivity, and took three lives during his 34 years in a tank.
SeaWorld bought Tilikum intending to breed from him, despite knowing he had already killed an employee of his previous aquarium during a live presentation. He sired more calves than any captive orca in history.
Artwork on Brighton beach outside Whalefest in 2014. This is not the one trampled by the old lady. The image of that only exists in the minds of the witnesses.
My fangirl instagram post of Steve Backshall giving his presentation, snapped on a potato from the back of the Whalefest audience in 2014.
Taiji's famous cove. The boats herd dolphins towards land where they are trapped behind layers of net.
The very moment a bottlenose dolphin loses its freedom.
Most of the dolphins are slaughtered in an inlet away from public view. Ric O'Barry's documentary The Cove exposed the needless bloodshed to the world.
The dolphins that put up the least fight aren't killed. They quickly start getting trained up ready to be sold to a marine park somewhere around the world.
The Taiji Whale Museum. This is the facility said to broker deals between the fishermen than catch the dolphins and the aquariums that buy them.
A cheery Taiji Whale Museum display depicting a North Pacific right whale hunt. They were targeted so aggressively they are critically endangered. There are only 200-250 left worldwide and still decreasing.
A false killer whale in a public presentation at Taiji Whale Museum. It's been home to at least eight different dolphin species, the widest variety I've ever seen at a single facility.
The Taiji Whale Museum appears to have particular fondness for albino animals and at this current time they appear to have at least three albino dolphins.
The aftermath of a drive hunt in the Faroe Islands. They target Atlantic white-sided dolphins (pictured) along with long-finned pilot whales, Risso's dolphins and bottlenose dolphins.
Whaling was very difficult in the olden days, and while I personally think it's wrong on every conceivable level it is a more sustainable approach than industrialised whaling.
A modern whaling ship. After the invention of the explosive harpoon in the 1800s hunting ramped up so much most of the world's big whale species became endangered.
A huge portion of the plastic pollution in the ocean is discarded fishing gear. It both entangles wildlife and releases toxins as it breaks down.
An unintended victim of long-line fishing. Birds see the floating baited hooks and don't realise they're supposed to hook tuna. They get snared and drown.
You are extremely unlikely to see a living vaquita. It's the smallest whale on Earth but it get tangled in gill nets in Mexican waters so frequently it will probably be extinct by the end of this sentence.
Delle, the robot dolphin created by Edge Innovations. This technology could one day replace living animals in captivity.
The sewage treatment plant (above) that's been repurposed into Clearwater Marine Aquarium (below).
Winter the rescue dolphin whose tail had to be amputated after it got caught in a crab trap. She was three months old.
Clearwater Marine Aquarium nursed Winter back to health and arranged for her to have a prosthetic tail fitted.
After the release of Dolphin Tale, the aquarium promised to build Winter a bigger enclosure. She had to wait 15 years for it, and died 18 months after its completion.
Clearwater Marine Aquarium has had so many dolphins die in the last decade or so that their care and welfare standards have had to be investigated.
A harbour porpoise performing in a public presentation at the Fjord & Baelt centre in Kerteminde, Denmark.
The layout of the Fjord & Baelt centre. The left hand pool at the top is for seals. The triangular area at the bottom right is a buffer between the fjord and the porpoise pool. The animals participate in research in the small rectangular pool, and the white square inside that is the medical isolation pool.
A porpoise at Fjord & Baelt doing a 'ball detect'. The animal is blinded with rubber suction cups and presented with two balls that look the same but have different internal structures. The porpoise uses echolocation to tell which is which.
A dolphin being subjected to a blood test. The animal has to hold its breath upside down throughout. Trainers have to do this at least once a day, though just simulate the pain of the needle with a sharp object or fingernail.
Daily medical care includes gastric sampling, where a rubber tube is pushed down the throat to collect digestive juices.
The Netflix documentary The Last Dolphin King sheds light on widespread dolphin abuse and depicts horrifying medical procedures on awake and conscious dolphins.
One of an entire aeroplane full of live dolphins. It's commonplace for dolphins to be flown around the world. This particular animal is unlucky enough to be part of a travelling circus.
Hundreds of dolphins are captured from the wild and forced to assist naval forces of various countries. Abuse, such as dumping old or sick animals at sea, is reportedly widespread.
Don't believe that smile. That's just what dolphins look like. It doesn't equate to happiness. If you haven't already, please listen to A Dolphin Pod. That's the only way this insane photo gallery will make the least bit of sense.