At Monkey Mia in Western Australia, a situation exists where several dolphins visit the beach daily and accept fish from the paying public. The beginnings of this interaction with humans may be attributed to Ninny Watts who began to hand feed a bottlenose dolphin she named ‘Charlie’ from a boat anchored off Monkey Mia jetty in 1964. The accessibility of the situation sees up to 800 visitors in a weekend.
The hand-feeding of wild dolphins is a lucrative ecotourism industry in parts of Australia, there are four locations where tourism operators have special permits that allow feeding programs. This is called “provisioning” and happens in Monkey Mia and Bunbury, Western Australia, Tin Can Bay and Moreton Island, north-eastern Australia.
