K2 and MiraMar highlight Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat attractions
By Susan Stapleton
The Mirage Ticket sales begin at 10 a.m., last admission 30 minutes prior to close, $19.95 adults, $14.95 children 4-12, children 3 and under free with adult. 702.791.7188
One bottlenose dolphin calf made his splash into the world on July 3. The second arrived Aug. 20. Now K2, with his mother Duchess, and MiraMar, with his mother Huf n Puf, are main attractions at Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat at The Mirage.
The young boys cavort, frolic and blow bubbles as guests watch them playing in the birthing and research pool at the resort. In early January, MiraMar ate his first fish, a developmental milestone for the calf, who will nurse for up to a year. Altogether, four male bottlenose dolphins and six females make up three generations who reside in the pools behind The Mirage.
“Watching them develop and learn from each other has been fun,” said David Blasko, director of animal care at The Mirage. After all, the Dolphin Habitat is a research facility where the family of dolphins is trained in husbandry behaviors. Blasko and his team also work with universities on research to benefit dolphins, including one project to determine the effects on dolphins of BP’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
For a hands-on experience with the dolphins, some guests elect to spend an entire day as a trainer. “A lot of facilities have programs where you can swim with them,” Blasko said. “This is for anybody who has ever had a dream of being a dolphin trainer.”
Guests spend an entire day learning how to train the dolphins for $550 and can bring someone to watch from the sidelines for $150. Outfitted in wet suits, booties and whistles, guests might take biological samples, help with records for the animals or prepare the restaurant-quality fish the dolphins eat. Every experience varies depending on what the trainers are doing with the dolphins that day, but each includes one-on-one time with the dolphins, breakfast and lunch next to the pools and photos of the experience.
“It’s amazing how many emails we get from guests that it’s the single most exciting event in their life,” Blasko said of the program that started in 2005. “We have people who have come back and done the program four times.”
Guests who don’t want to dip their toes in the pools can still get an intimate experience with the animals in the new Yoga Among the Dolphins class through The Spa at The Mirage. The yoga class takes place in a special viewing area below the pools with a backdrop of the playful dolphins set against yogis performing downward dog and warrior poses. Classes are Sunday through Friday at 8:30 a.m. ($50).
Anytime the habitat is open the dolphins will be at play, but Blasko says the Secret Garden and its big cats are best viewed in the morning, toward the end of the day or around 1 p.m. when the animals are swapped out and more active. The 1-acre facility features the white lions of Timbavati, the royal white tigers of Nevada, black and spotted leopards and heterozygous golden tigers that carry the gene for the white coloration. Guests get close enough
to the big cats to hear them purring and chirping.
