Picabo, dolphin born at Mirage, dies

Thursday, July 8, 2004 | 9:31 a.m.

A 10-year-old Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, one of the first born in Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden at The Mirage, died Friday after an unknown illness.

Picabo, named after U.S. Olympic skier Picabo Street, had been in the care of veterinarians at The Mirage's Dolphin Habitat for weeks, spokesman Alan Feldman said Wednesday night.

Tissue samples from the dead dolphin were sent for laboratory analysis to try and determine the cause of death, Feldman said.

"They (veterinarians) will have to try to find out what happened," Feldman said.

Picabo was born on March 14, 1994, the daughter of Dutchess. Street had won the downhill silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, shortly before the dolphin's birth. She won the Olympic gold medal in 1998 at Nagano, Japan.

Eight dolphins remain at the habitat, including Picabo's male calf, Rascal, 3 years old, Feldman said.

"It's sad," he said.

Steve Wynn, when he owned The Mirage, launched the Secret Garden with Siegfried Fishbacher and Roy Horn and brought dolphins to the desert.

Clark County school students visit the dolphins. And in 2002, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas student wrote a thesis on the mammals after studying their communicative clicks.

The Mirage dolphin facility strives to provide a healthy environment for the dolphins and to increase public awareness for conserving marine mammals and their environments, company officials said.

A computer system tracks the dolphins in their habitat at The Mirage.

The 2.5-million gallon habitat, consisting of four pools for the dolphins, exceeds government regulations by more than eight times. No dolphins have been taken from the wild for The Mirage exhibit, officials said.

Not everyone agrees that keeping dolphins captive in habitats such as the one at The Mirage is humane. Dolphin expert and former trainer Richard O'Barry is working with the World Society for the Protection of Animals to protect and keep dolphins and other sea creatures in the wild.

O'Barry, who trained TV animal star Flipper, quit hunting and training dolphins after the television series ended.

"I was appalled and disgusted by what I had been doing," O'Barry said. "I was also determined to stop it."

According to O'Barry's Web site, U.S. regulations allow dolphins to be kept in pens that are 30-foot square. The mammals in the wild dive down more than 1,640 feet, he said.

Dolphins are also highly intelligent, communicating by sound and by touch. They live for a long time, females longer than 50 years and males up to 40 years.