Dolphin Saves the Whales
While I’m on the subject of life-saving miracles, the BBC reported this week that it’s not just humans who take an interest in whale conservation. A bottlenose dolphin, known in her local neighbourhood as Moko, is taking it as seriously as any dolphin can.
Mr Smith and his team of humans were getting nowhere fast in their attempt to save a pair of beached whales from the north east coast of New Zealand. Moko sped to the rescue just in time (maybe in a waterproof cape), uttered a few carefully chosen instructions to the whales (maybe in a Whalish accent), and they made it safely home in time for tea (or maybe a krill tisane).
“I don’t speak whale and I don’t speak dolphin,” Mr Smith told the BBC, “but there was obviously something that went on because the two whales changed their attitude from being quite distressed to following the dolphin quite willingly and directly along the beach and straight out to sea.”
He added: “The dolphin did what we had failed to do. It was all over in a matter of minutes.” [original article]
Tales of dolphins saving humans go back to ancient Greece. It was Plutarch, the Greek moralist and biographer, who said, “To the dolphin alone, beyond all other, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage.” [source]
The best-known dolphin legends feature them forming a ring to protect surfers from sharks, or guiding stray swimmers back to shore. Incredibly dolphins extend their instinct for self-preservation to just about any species (except sharks), and seem to employ it with effortless brilliance.
Is it intelligence or just a natural benevolence? According to Douglas Adams in his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, they are much wiser than we are… but then he also insisted mice are secretly ruling the world. Even when I was hooked on the series at age 10, I wasn’t entirely convinced by that. Let’s see what the Ultimate Guide to Dolphins has to say instead:
Dolphins have large brains for their bodies — in fact, a bottlenose dolphin is second only to humans in the ratio of brain size to body size. Researchers have also pointed to the parallels in the organization of dolphin and primate brains as more evidence of high intelligence in dolphins. Some have gone so far as to suggest that dolphins actually have a language that humans simply cannot comprehend.
But others say that in our enthusiasm to anthropomorphize dolphins, we give them powers they just don’t possess. A closer look suggests that much of the dolphin’s large brain is taken up with echolocation and handling acoustical information — processes at which they excel. But dolphins tend to rank at about the level of elephants in “intelligence” tests and haven’t shown any unusual talent at problem solving.
So what is that unique quality that fascinates and charms us, if we cannot truly call it intelligence? In his book The Animal Kingdom, Sri Chinmoy calls it sagacity.
Dolphin : Sagacity
Dolphin, my dolphin,
Your advanced sagacity
Denies your inferiority
To forest animals.
You make man feel that your consciousness
Borders upon the extremity of human life
With ceaseless strife.—Sri Chinmoy
From The Animal Kingdom
sagacity (su’gasitee)
1. [n] the trait of forming opinions by distinguishing and evaluating
2. [n] the ability to make good judgments
The names of the two saved whales are not known, and Moko’s instructions have not been translated, but whatever she said, it seemed to the whales a very good judgment indeed.
What an inspiring story Sumangali. Makes this born and bred Kiwi proud to be a New Zealander. I’m sure any dolphin readers will be well proud as well—and deservedly so.
Yes John, I think they would be proud if I could get my Global Translator plugin to speak Dolphin. Maybe it would be faster for them to learn a human language; I’m still not convinced we’re cleverer than they are.
By reading this post I realised how good it is
to learn something about the animal kingdom, specially about the meaning of dolphin:
Sagacity.
Hello Nirmala, how lovely to see you here!
Yes, I always feel we have so much to learn from our humble brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom. Humans may be more sophisticated, but in so many ways animals are more advanced than us.
One of my favourite examples is the tiny unassuming ant. I wrote a little about him here, and the bee is also a tiny but astonishing creature, to whom we owe our very lives.
Best wishes to you. I hope you come back to visit again soon.
This is such a heart-warming story. It reminds us different kinds of knowledge and intelligence exist, and human beings aren’t always ready to understand or accept its beyond their current comprehension.
Reality is that distracting emotions, such as deep-seated arrogance and the insecurity of not knowing, get in the way of accepting we have much to learn. Humans can begin by deciding the artificial hierarchies of intelligence in the animal kingdom that we have constructed are inaccurate and misleading. We can all help each other on this journey we call life. To do so more effectively, we must stop assuming one creature is better or more intelligent than another. Real life examples shatter this myth. It would also be helpful for us to recognize we also perpetuate false assumptions about intelligence in the human world. This needs revision too.
I absolutely agree, Liara, that arrogance is a mistake, but perhaps one that we all make in some way every day, even without realising it.
It takes courage to accept that we do not understand something, and humility to admit that fact. Sometimes we speak our limited wisdom when we could multiply that wisdom simply by remaining silent and observant of the world around us.
…but that’s just my limited wisdom speaking
I’m certainly glad that this little kiwi wasn’t assuming himself more intelligent than any other species…
This is truly a remarkable story and I am thrilled that so many have taken an interest! Feel free to check out: http://www.planetflipper.com to discuss whales and dolphins further.
Hi Brittany, thanks a lot for the link. Interesting site.
Good luck
Sumangali
Wonko the Sane for President!
The paradox of mountains.
Sometimes I get discouraged that few among your kind, really give a damn about whales and dolphins. Most of you are so concerned about your own lives that you have no time to care about others of your own species, let alone mine. To me it seems that you are lost and alone in one of life’s dark valleys, surrounded by mountains that tower over you, making you seem small and insignificant. For you to see the view from their peaks you must climb their sides, a journey that is arduous and often fatal. Whereas for whales and dolphins, we spend our lives above the mountains. From our vantage point, we can see the majesty of a mountaintop, while its base holds no appeal for us, because it is rooted firmly in the deeps, where we dare not go. I wonder if that is why the soul of man is cloaked in darkness and self-pity, while that of beings is filled with the light and hope; because you spend your entire life looking up at mountains, wishing you were on top, while we spend our lives looking down on them, thankful we are not at the bottom.
Apollo
http://whaleanddolphintalk.blogspot.com/
just seeing their picture I want to keep it in a pool