Margaret Howe Lovatt (born Margaret C. Howe, in 1942) is a former volunteer naturalist from
Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
Saint Thomas ( da, Sankt Thomas) is one of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea which, together with Saint John, Water Island, Hassel Island, and Saint Croix, form a county-equivalent and constituent district of the United States Virgin ...
. In the 1960s, she took part in a
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
-funded research project in which she attempted to teach a dolphin named Peter to understand and mimic human speech. As a child, she was inspired by a book called '' Miss Kelly'', a story about a cat who communicated with humans. This inspired her to research teaching animals to speak human language.
Dolphinarium
When she was in her early 20s, Lovatt lived on the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
island of St. Thomas, where there was a laboratory to research dolphins. The director of the laboratory,
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. His writings include '' Steps to an ...
, allowed her to observe dolphin behavior, and was impressed by her enthusiasm and diligence as an observer despite her lack of scientific training. While volunteering at the laboratory, she met
John C. Lilly
John Cunningham Lilly (January 6, 1915 – September 30, 2001)John C. Lilly at
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
with the goal of speaking to extraterrestrial life forms. In order to simulate this situation he built a " Dolphinarium", a dolphin-house flooded with water, on Saint Thomas. There Lilly accommodated three dolphins, two females named Sissy and Pamela and one younger male
bottlenose dolphin
Bottlenose dolphins are aquatic mammals in the genus ''Tursiops.'' They are common, cosmopolitan members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Molecular studies show the genus definitively contains two species: the common ...
named Peter. All of them were taken from
Marine Studios
Marineland of Florida (usually just called Marineland), one of Florida's first marine mammal parks, is billed as "the world's first oceanarium". Marineland functions as an entertainment and swim-with-the-dolphins facility, and reopened to the pu ...
and had been co-starring in the television show '' Flipper''. In 1964 the "Dolphinarium" was fully functional, and as Lilly was often traveling, he assigned Lovatt to train the dolphins.
The goal of the "Dolphinarium" experiment was to teach dolphins human language. Over a period of two years, Lilly and Lovatt, both with very different approaches, tried to prove that human language could be mimicked by dolphins. Lovatt reasoned that if she lived with the dolphins and made human-like sounds, similar to how a mother teaches her child to speak, they would have more success. She tried speaking slowly and changing the pitch of her tone to help Peter pronounce the words that she wanted him to learn. Lovatt and the pubescent male dolphin Peter spent all their time together in the isolated "Dolphinarium" where she documented Peter's progress with her twice-daily lessons and encouragement to say the words "Hello Margaret". According to Lovatt, the "m" sound was extremely difficult for Peter to pronounce without making bubbles in the water.
Lovatt's experiments, and her relationship with Peter the dolphin, were documented in
Christopher Riley
Christopher Riley (born 1967) is a British writer, broadcaster and film maker specialising in the history of science. He has a PhD from Imperial College London, Imperial College, University of London where he pioneered the use of digital elevat ...
's documentary ''
The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
''.
Complications
Peter, being an adolescent dolphin, frequently had sexual urges, which included rubbing himself on Lovatt. The urges disrupted Peter's lessons, and taking Peter to a downstairs pool with two female dolphins proved to be a logistical issue for Lovatt. Eventually, Lovatt relieved Peter's urges herself, stating "It wasn't sexual on my part. Sensuous perhaps. It seemed to me that it made the bond closer. Not because of the sexual activity, but because of the lack of having to keep breaking. And that's really all it was. I was there to get to know Peter. That was part of Peter... It would just become part of what was going on, like an itch, just get rid of that scratch and we would be done and move on."
An article titled " Interspecies Sex: Humans and Dolphins" appeared in the magazine ''
Hustler
Hustler or hustlers may also refer to:
Professions
* Hustler, an American slang word, e.g., for a:
** Con man, a practitioner of confidence tricks
** Drug dealer, seller of illegal drugs
** Male prostitute
** Pimp
** Business man, more general ...
'' that dramatized the situation and reflected badly on their research.
Other problems arose surrounding the project. In addition to Lovatt's animal communication research, Lilly had been funded to research the effects of the drug LSD. Lilly had been testing the effects of the drug on subject dolphins, with no results. Since neither his communication experiments nor his LSD research were proving fruitful, Lilly's Dolphinarium eventually lost all funding. Due to the lack of funding, the dolphins were moved to a different facility in a repurposed bank building in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
.
In smaller tanks, and since the building lacked sunlight and space, Peter quickly deteriorated and eventually ended his life by drowning. Dolphin activist Ric O'Barry explains, "Dolphins are not automatic air-breathers like we umansare... Every breath is a conscious effort. If life becomes too unbearable, the dolphins just take a breath and they sink to the bottom. They don't take the next breath."
Personal life
Lovatt stayed on the island and married a photographer who photographed their research. They later moved back into the Dolphinarium and converted it into a family home. Together they had three daughters.
In popular culture
The story was parodied in the ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...