Hunter Kinney, head coach and chief innovation officer for Dolphin Life Inc., bonds together with his first dolphin love, Alfonz, at Dolphin Life Key Largo. Credit score: Dolphin Life Inc.
Hunter Kinney, head coach and chief innovation officer for Dolphin Life Inc. within the Higher Keys, is a Kentucky boy who loves all animals.
Rising up on a 3-acre farm in Somerset, Kentucky, Kinney was surrounded by a menagerie of landlocked livestock: horses, goats, canines and cats, and free-flying wild birds akin to hawks, vultures and eagles.
Kinney noticed his first dolphins across the age of 6 whereas on a Central Florida household trip at Seaworld Orlando.
Hunter Kinney (r) and husband Luke (l) in Kentucky with their three pet pugs: Buoy, Harbor and Whaler. Credit score: Hunter Kinney, Dolphin Life Inc.
“I used to be simply mesmerized. Seeing the trainers and dolphins work together collectively is what made me fall in love with dolphins,” Kinney remembers. “I needed to chase my dolphin dream.”
Kinney graduated from Jap Kentucky College with a level in animal research and got here to the Keys 10 years in the past as an intern with Dolphins Plus Oceanside in Key Largo.
Dolphins Plus Marine Mammal Responder (DPMMR) was based by Artwork and Nancy Cooper, who initially rebranded Dolphins Plus Oceanside to DPMMR; and once more in 2025 to Dolphin Life Inc.
Artwork is head life guard (or founder and director of strandings) and Nancy is president. For practically 40 years, DPMMR’s group, led by the Coopers, has responded to beached, sick and injured dolphins and whales within the Keys.
The Dolphin Life facility in Key Largo permits guests to swim with wholesome dolphins.
And with the rebranded Dolphin Life Hospital (previously The Defend Heart) in Islamorada, long-term services are quickly to carry out life-saving rehabilitation and care for big stranded or sick dolphins and whales. Federal approvals are anticipated to be finalized in December.
Hunter Kinney (l) with Amanda Daniels (r), Dolphin Life’s chief momentum officer and a great good friend. The 2 labored to develop Dolphin Life’s Explorashorium Marinelife Museum at Dolphin Life in Islamorada. Credit score: Dolphin Life Inc.
At Dolphin Life Hospital, guests can tour its therapy and academic museum services. Every day backlot rescue excursions, day by day at 11 a.m. and a pair of:30 p.m., characteristic a behind-the-scenes tour of the working hospital.
The ability features a 40-foot-diameter pool, to open in October for long-term mammal rehabilitation.
Its Explorashorium is a 2,000-square-foot interactive museum-style house with aquariums, contact tanks and immersive rotating displays; and an academic classroom-style house for conferences, small teams, occasions and seminars.
The Dolphin Life reward store options sustainable refillery gadgets and newly branded Dolphin Life clothes, merchandise, presents and souvenirs. Gross sales of branded merchandise — “much like the Salt Life model” — are brisk, Kinney stated.
Moreover new merchandising, the rebranding of Dolphin Life. led by Kinney, contains new signage, brand and immersive applications. A brand new Expertise the Dolphin Life in Key Largo half-day expertise features a tour, swimming and snorkeling with dolphins, a hands-on dolphin care exercise with behind-the-scenes care duties, and photographs and a T-shirt.
The Keys’ two main dolphin care organizations, Dolphin Life Inc. within the Higher Keys and Dolphin Analysis Heart within the Center Keys, have totally different missions.
Hunter Kinney (second from r) and his group of Dolphin Life coaches, attired in new Dolphin Life rash guards. (l to r): Danika Smith, Maddie Jackson, Jenna Haberle, Kayla Lucero, Kinney and Cristina Cuhel. Credit score: Dolphin Life Inc.
The 41-year-old Dolphin Analysis Heart on Grassy Key was established in 1984 to supply a nonprofit sanctuary, analysis facility and without end house to dolphins and California sea lions. DRC’s analysis program focuses on three major areas: cognition, conduct and husbandry.
“Monroe County is house to extra mammal services than any county in America,” stated Rita Irwin, president and chief govt officer of Dolphin Analysis Heart in Marathon. “We stay up for persevering with our mutually supportive relationship with the Dolphin Life group.”
Dolphin Life’s mission — to be South Florida’s solely working and instructing veterinary hospital treating injured bottlenose dolphins, whales and different marine mammals — is to supply safety and care of rescued and stranded dolphins and whales and to supply without end properties for non-releasable dolphins within the Keys.
Judy Hull, the Islamorada Chamber of Commerce’s govt director, was instrumental in persuading Kinney, who’s in his early 30s, to turn out to be concerned with Keys tourism as a volunteer DAC IV member.
“Hunter is an inspiring steward of our wild sea life. Via his management at Dolphin Life, the primary hospital and welcome middle of its form in South Florida, he’s not solely saving dolphins and whales, he’s additionally educating the following technology concerning the significance of defending them,” stated Judy Hull, govt director, the Islamorada Chamber of Commerce.
“Hunter brings unbelievable ardour and vitality to defending marine life. From hands-on care to group outreach, he’s making an actual distinction for dolphins, whales, and for future generations,” Hull stated.
Kinney lives in Islamorada with husband Luke, who directs Key Largo’s Island Dolphin Care. Dolphin Care’s mission is to supply distinctive, dolphin motivational, and academic applications to youngsters, adults with particular wants, their households and caregivers.
Keys Traveler: When did you first come to the Florida Keys and why?
Hunter Kinney: In fall 2015 to take part in a dolphin coaching internship. I knew I wished to work with dolphins for a profession, however didn’t have my eyes set on doing so within the Florida Keys till I used to be provided a full-time place right here and determined to remain.
KT: What features of the Keys setting or lifestyle matter most to you?
HK: I completely love how distinctive the Florida Keys are — each when it comes to the environment and our Keys life-style. I got here from Kentucky and I don’t like chilly climate, so the sunshine and heat climate all through your entire 12 months is so uplifting and energizing. The islands are additionally so minimize off from ‘metropolis life’ — I really feel like I’m dwelling in paradise, surrounded by lovely blue water and unbelievable wildlife. I see dolphins on daily basis at work, however I’m nonetheless mesmerized seeing them play out within the wild anytime I encounter them on the boat. The group right here can also be so particular, related, and devoted to defending our group and tradition. (It additionally has no scarcity of character and enjoyable.)
KT: What impressed you to turn out to be keen about defending the Keys’ pure world and the way does that keenness impression your day by day life and work?
HK: I’ve all the time liked animals and wildlife. I grew up round each farm animal you might consider, and as quickly as I used to be sufficiently old began to volunteer at a wildlife rehabilitation clinic again house. Working with animals and wildlife has been part of my life for my whole life. However dolphins have all the time had a particular place in my coronary heart, so I moved to the Keys to have the ability to work with them. Shortly after beginning, a bunch of dolphins beached themselves and our group responded to them. I noticed there was a bridge between the wildlife rehabilitation and non-profit work I did again house and the dolphin world. This translated into my ardour for safeguarding the whales and dolphins right here within the Florida Keys and shapes every little thing I do at work.
KT: How do you personally work to ‘join and shield’ the Keys’ setting and the island chain’s distinctive life-style?
HK: I feel I’ve it simple — as a result of all people loves dolphins and they’re really easy to hook up with. My work revolves round bringing folks in and constructing a connection between themselves and our dolphins and our story of marine mammal rescue. When somebody will get within the water with a dolphin and begins to play with them and sees how we take care of them, they’ll’t assist however construct a connection to a dwelling being. Pair that new connection to a dolphin with actionable methods to guard dolphins within the wild — and abruptly there’s a new wildlife warrior serving to to guard dolphins which, in flip, protects the setting as a complete. Past this, my job is to be a storyteller — sharing the tales that folks will join with. We deal with storytelling and getting the “story” proper. When the story is correct, it makes folks really feel, and people emotions result in motion.
KT: What do you hope your environmental actions within the Keys will assist to perform?
HK: My major hope is that the wildlife in our yard — from the most important (dolphins and whales) to the smallest (corals) — have a protected house right here within the Florida Keys without end. However secondary to that, I hope our wildlife have the help they want after they want it.
For me personally, that appears like ensuring the dolphins and whales have a rescue group, a hospital, and a second likelihood at life in our native waters. On the uncommon event that launch isn’t an possibility, it’s vital that our dolphins have a loving, without end house to reside out a great life. I hope that our actions, applications, and experiences are all instruments that assist us advocate for a greater future for dolphins and whales worldwide.