Riviera Nayarit, Mexico - The research used by Dolphin Adventures in their dolphin insemination program can very well spell salvation for protected and endangered species.

Riviera Nayarit offers its visitors many different services and attractions, including luxury accommodations, beaches, gastronomy, and sports. It also strives to maintain a very close bond with nature, always seeking to play a part in helping conserve the environment.

Strengthening these bonds are the dolphinariums located in the Banderas Bay, which not only attract tourists, but also encourage environmental education through their activities.

These attractions receive thousands of visitors a year. The visitors, trainers, and above all, the dolphins themselves, are charged with educating on ecological topics, as they are the true environmental ambassadors.

Mirai, the first calf in Mexico to be born after using sperm sexing and artificial insemination technologies, was born at the Dolphin Adventure Center in Nuevo Vallarta on December 4th, 2009.

Dolphin Adventures offers a program to raise ecological awareness by giving incentives to its visitors to protect and care for the environment. They welcome 21 thousand children from different schools each year, who come to enjoy themselves while learning to care for the planet.

According to Ricardo Rebolledo, supervisor for the Nuevo Vallarta Dolphin Adventures, the center also gifts 300 "dolphin therapies" to the Banderas Bay DIF (Spanish acronym for the National System for the Complete Development of the Family) so the entity can give them out to those people in need.

"We respect the smallest visitor as much as we do the biggest," stated Rebolledo, "and we’re firmly onboard with conservation and eco-awareness. I love that the Riviera Nayarit CAB always flies a neutral flag, they’re a trustworthy partner that is always there for us and vice versa; this helps all of us grow."

The reproduction program the center has developed has come so far that 85 percent of their eighteen dolphins have been born using their procedures.

The commitment is to focus on research and the conservation of the species, as this insemination procedure with the dolphins can also be used to save endangered animals in the near future.

"By 2010 we had become part of a world-wide research program in conjunction with SeaWorld’s Busch Gardens," he added. "The advantage of assisted reproduction is that you get to manage the amount of births that you have so you don’t run out of resources to care for the animals."

By using this procedure the researchers have full control of the hormonal and social facets, as well as even the sex of the infant. There have been 15 births around the world utilizing this system of artificial insemination; three of them have been in Vallarta.

Mother Nature has been very generous with Riviera Nayarit as can be experienced in the nature sanctuaries of the Marieta, Isabel, and María islands, among others; these environmental education activities are fundamental for their conservation.

This kind of social symbiosis also works to contribute towards the protection of species such as the jaguar, the marine turtles, humpback whales, and the many birds endemic to our area.