Dolphin Encounters, the marine park on Blue Lagoon Island, and Total Care Inc. of Kennesaw, Georgia, earned the First Place Award at the annual meeting of the International Marine Animal Trainers Association (IMATA) held in Long Beach, California recently. The Award recognises work that enhances the use of technology in the animal training industry.

Dolphin Encounters edged out the U.S. Navy who won the Second Place IMATA Award for training dolphins to participate in MRI exams, and Dolphin Quest who won Third Place for its work in coaching animal trainers to use ultrasound equipment on pregnant dolphins.

Annette Dempsey, Assistant Marine Mammal Director at Dolphin Encounters Ltd., and William E. Campbell, Ph.D., Founder and President of Total Animal Care Inc., have developed a computer program specifically designed to meet the needs of animal trainers, handlers, researchers and veterinarians. The software vastly cuts down on the time that animal care professionals have to spend on record-keeping -- a crucial component of their work -- and greatly enhances their ability to store, analyse and share information.

"By consolidating the way in which records are kept, and by allowing animal care professionals to exchange large amounts of information regardless of where they live and work, this program greatly enhances productivity as well as the level of care that we can provide for the animals," said Annette Dempsey. "The most important aspect of our trainers' work is to spend quality time with the dolphins, and this software allows them to focus on that, rather than on the tedious -- and not always reliable -- process of filling out forms by hand."

The program, called "Total Care," has high-speed input features like drag-and-drop, cutting and pasting, text import and voice recognition, so that much of the data that needs to be tracked can be input without typing. All of the statistical tables -- on medical samples, measurements and weights, nursing care, etc. -- provide historic and current information at a single glance, making it easy to spot trends in the animals' health and behavior.

In addition, the program automatically spots unusual events or activities. For example, it routinely compares lab results to normal readings for any given species, and alerts a trainer if a therapeutic treatment is not being administered properly.

Information on animal diseases and most veterinary drugs, along with usual prescription levels, are also pre-loaded into the program for easy reference. "We started with the goal of saving trainers' time and improving the quality of record keeping, but we ended up adding a lot more features as we went along, including access to internet databases plus picture and video archival retrieval systems, all of which are very exciting," said Dr. Campbell, a pioneer in the telemedicine industry and one of the leading ultrasound specialists for large marine-mammals. "Also, the program is very user-friendly, which is important. It only takes one hour to teach the animal trainers how to use it."

In recent months, top facilities like Dolphin Quest, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Moss Landing Marine Lab in Northern California have started to use the "Total Care" package. Dolphin Quest Oahu has fully implemented the software and now runs a paperless trainer office.

"It is an honour to receive this prestigious industry award, " said Robert Meister, Managing Director of Dolphin Encounters Ltd. "It is especially significant to us that a Bahamian company has co-developed this software package that is now being adopted by other leading facilities around the world."

Dr. Campbell and Ms. Dempsey, who worked for two years to develop the program, demonstrated the software to hundreds of their colleagues at the International Marine Animals Training Association (IMATA) meeting. IMATA is an organisation dedicated to providing and advancing the most professional, effective and humane care of marine animals in all habitats.

The Awards are sponsored by Outernet International, a technology consulting and research company.