The story of Margaret Howe Lovatt and Peter the Dolphin is a tragic one, with a NASA-funded experiment being shut down shortly after she formed a 'sensuous' relationship with her test subject.
While working at a dolphin research laboratory in the 1960s, Lovatt caught the attention of neuroscientist John C. Lilly and was invited to join his program that hoped to communicate with extraterrestrial life by studying how different species talk to each other. Lilly constructed the ‘Dolphinarium;, which housed three dolphins called
Peter, Pamela, and Sissy. Lovatt took a particular shine to Peter, and speaking in 2014, she explained: "Peter was a young guy. He was sexually coming of age and a bit naughty.”
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Lovatt threw herself into teaching the dolphins to make human-like sounds but couldn't believe their ‘big brains’ were left alone at night.
Flooding the upper levels of the lab and choosing to live in isolation with Peter six days a week, Lovatt slept on a makeshift bed in the middle of the room and did her paperwork from a suspended desk. On the seventh day, Peter was sent down to the sea pool to spend time with Pamela and Sissy.
Speaking during the BBC's The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins documentary, Lovatt opened up about her relationship with Peter and admitted: "Peter liked to be with me. He would rub himself on my knee, or my foot, or my hand, or whatever, and I allowed that.
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“I wasn't uncomfortable with that as long as it wasn't too rough."
Lovatt would send him down to the female dolphins for a day if he injured her, but hoping to speed up the results process, she’d eventually relieve him 'manually': "It was just easier to incorporate that and let it happen. It was very, precious, it was very gentle.
"Peter was right there, he knew that I was right there."
Lovatt continued: "It was sexual on his part, it was not sexual on mine, sensuous perhaps."
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As for how things developed, she confessed: "It would just become part of what was going on, like an itch. Just get rid of that, we'll scratch it and we'll be done.
"Move on and that's really all it was."
For vet Andy Williamson, he was concerned about the bond the pair had formed, adding in The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins: "It was great that she wasn't going to be damaged by that, but as a veterinarian, I wondered about poor Peter.
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"This dolphin was madly in love with her."
Things took a dark turn when Hustler got wind of Margaret and Peter's experiment, publishing an article called "Interspecies Sex: Humans and Dolphins." Lilly was also reportedly giving the dolphins LSD to try and gain results, and in the end, lab director Gregory Bateson was driven away while funding was cut. Margaret and Peter’s six-month live-in experiment came to an end alongside the lab, with Peter being moved to Lilly's other facility that was inside a disused bank building in Miami. A few weeks later, Lovatt remembered: "I got that phone call from John Lilly. John called me himself to tell me. He said Peter had committed suicide."
At least Lovatt got a happy ending after she stayed on the island, married the photographer who'd captured the experiments, and converted the Dolphinarium into a home where they raised three daughters.