Margaret Howe, a NASA researcher, has spoken out about her relationship with a dolphin called Peter in the U.S. Virgin Islands back in 1965.
In an upcoming documentary, The Girl Who Talked To Dolphins, Howe, now Howe Lovatt, outlines how she came to met Peter and what happened during her time working with him.
Howe Lovatt had been hired by a researcher to teach the dolphin how to speak English but Peter was more interested in Lovatt herself.
Although Howe herself never took part in anything sexual, she claimed that it was sexual on his part: "It was sexual on his part – it was not sexual on mine, sensuous perhaps.
"I was there to get to know Peter, that was part of Peter," she said.
In the documentary, Lovatt also describes how Peter had become slightly infatuated with her: ‘I find that his desires are hindering our relationship,’ she wrote in her research. "He jams himself again and again against my legs, circles around me, is inclined to nibble and is generally so excited that he cannot control his attitude toward me.’
According to the Daily Mail, Peter, Margaret decided, "is courting me or something very similar. He presents his tummy and genital area for stroking. Perhaps this is his way of involving me in some form of sex play without scaring me away.’
However, after a time the lab was closed due to lack of funding. Peter died just a few short weeks later as he sunk to the bottom of his pool and refused to breathe.
The Girl Who Talked To Dolphins is on BBC4 on June 17 at 9pm.
