Loner by Nature, Dolphin Seeks Human Pals : Sea life: Since early Greek civilization, there have been only about 30 recorded loners behaving like JoJo.

A gray-blue dorsal fin surfaces next to a boatful of pleasure-cruising vacationers in the waters of Caicos Passage, in the Atlantic just north of the Caribbean Sea.

Before any of the excited passengers can snap a picture, though, the dolphin takes off underwater, back to the fluid world he has chosen to share with people for more than a decade.

Known as JoJo, this Atlantic bottlenose dolphin is a rarity: a solitary wild dolphin that seeks human company. His toys are Jet Skis and sailboats. His playmates are scuba divers.

His home is the 193 miles of turquoise waters that surround this little-known archipelago of the British West Indies that lies between the Bahamas and Hispaniola.

“JoJo’s a fringe dolphin. He’s a dolphin at the end of the curve,” said Chuck Hesse, a marine biologist whose nonprofit conservation foundation initiated a project to protect the acrobatic creature.

Most dolphins swim in groups, called pods, of varying size. Solitary dolphins are far less common, and lone human-lovers are quite rare. Since the days of early Greek civilization, there have been only about 30 recorded human-loving dolphins like JoJo. Most of them have disappeared into the sea after a few years, presumably hooking up with a pod of their peers.

“They’re probably part of a small group, and the other members die, or they’re driven off by other members if they’re on the low end of the totem pole,” said Karen Pryor of Seattle, a biologist and former dolphin trainer. “They start by making do with people.”

JoJo started hanging around the waters off Providenciales, the most developed of the eight Turks and Caicos Islands, in 1984. He is estimated to be 17 or 18 years old. Most wild dolphins live to be at least 40 or 50.

After complaints from vacationers at Club Med about JoJo’s occasional irascible behavior--he has nipped a few people, usually after being provoked by their attempts to touch his sensitive blowhole--resort officials considered having him moved to the Bahamas. Groups of as many as 100 dolphins have cavorted there with swimmers and scientists for years.

But island residents, many of them fiercely protective of JoJo, resisted the idea. Eventually, experts were brought in to design warning signs. Dean Bernal, a young scuba diving instructor from California, was appointed by the Turks and Caicos minister of natural resources to protect and study JoJo.

Ten years later, both the dolphin and Bernal are still around. Bernal is now employed by the Bellerive Foundation, a Switzerland-based conservation organization.

The 7,000 island residents are now divided in their attitudes toward JoJo. “There are those who say he’s a wild dolphin and should be left alone,” said Jim Henry, owner of a local video-production company. “And there are those who say he should be regulated, even if he’s exploited as a result.”

Blame for the alleged exploitation is directed at everyone from Bernal, who sees JoJo daily, to the Natural Resources Ministry, which charges movie-camera crews $500 to photograph the gregarious marine mammal.

“JoJo is the income-maker. This is any tourist’s dream,” said Patricia St. John of New Milford, Conn., one of the dolphin experts Club Med consulted.

Tourism is the dominant industry of this 37-mile-long island.

Compared with some groups of sociable wild dolphins in other waters, Bernal argues, solitary JoJo isn’t exploited at all.

In Corpus Christi, Tex., Erv and Sonja Strong take visitors on cruises around Aransas Bay to observe dozens of bottlenoses that began feeding off local shrimp boats eight years ago. Similar dolphin-watching cruises operate along the coasts of Panama City, Fla., and Hilton Head Island, S.C.

These businesses were the target of a recent feeding ban of all wild marine mammals in the United States, ordered by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Observation cruises are still allowed.

On Providenciales, fresh teeth marks on JoJo’s body, after he has been away for a few days, indicate that he maintains some contact with other dolphins, Bernal said.

Some of JoJo’s ocean companions may be three former circus dolphins brought from Great Britain to Providenciales in 1992. Part of an international rehabilitation project called Into the Blue, the animals were weaned off frozen fish and human dependency and released last year.

But some dolphin experts contend that the circus animals were too old to be released. Chuck Hesse, whose 60-foot natural lagoon served as the dolphins’ interim home, say activists from Boston and Los Angeles have expressed interest in bringing captive dolphins to Providenciales for rehabilitation.

“After you release dolphins from years of captivity, there’s a remote possibility that one will stay,” he said. “Then there would be two JoJos.”