Dolphins save swimmers from shark

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-11-23 04:28pm

BTW, it is my personal opinion that dolphins are sentient. May or my not be true, but I lean towards yes.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-11-23 04:44pm

There are a lot of stories of sailors and people standed in lifeboats being rescued by dolphins I don't know if they're all true, but there are a lot of them. And dolphins will attack and kill sharks to defend any of their young or wounded, and possibly just because they hate them.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-11-23 04:48pm

They have also been known to sacrifice themselves for the pod

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-11-23 04:54pm

I know young-ish male dolphins often form their own pods, but aside from that, are the pods mostly members of a family? Sacrificing themselves could be considered group selection (protecting the others means protecting your own genes since they share some).

But at the same time, dolphins also have sex for pleasure and not just to reproduce, something that only humans and bonobos also do.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-11-23 05:02pm

Mayabird wrote:I know young-ish male dolphins often form their own pods, but aside from that, are the pods mostly members of a family? Sacrificing themselves could be considered group selection (protecting the others means protecting your own genes since they share some).

But at the same time, dolphins also have sex for pleasure and not just to reproduce, something that only humans and bonobos also do.

Simetimes they are extended family groups, sometimes they arent. It depends on the species, and the pod. But almost no other species besides humans will commit self sacrifice

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2004-11-23 05:31pm

Or maybe they're assholes and are stalking this specific shark and preventing him from eating

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2004-11-23 06:55pm

Alyrium Denryle wrote:
But almost no other species besides humans will commit self sacrifice

Well there are a few animals that do; giraffes have been known to do that against a pack of lions.

I find that article very interesting to read. One species willing to do anything to protect another. That is so wonderful, it makes me feel very good to know these things happens.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-11-23 07:58pm

Antares wrote:Obvious question:
Why should dolphins defend humans?

Any reasonable explanation? Or have i missed the first diplomatic negotiations between humans and doplhins recently?

This isn't the first time similar events have happened, and it certainly won't be the last. Don't ask me why; they just do it. Perhaps someone should decode all that chattering and ask a dolphin.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2004-11-23 08:28pm

Alyrium Denryle wrote:BTW, it is my personal opinion that dolphins are sentient. May or my not be true, but I lean towards yes.

Of course dolphins are sentient, MICE are sentient, for fuck's sake. Dolphins are known to be generally nice to humans, there's even a pod off the Hebrides that teaches its young to help the human fishermen, and the humans teach their kids too, in a mutually beneficial cross species fishing trip.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-11-23 08:32pm

I think he confused sentience with sapience.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-11-23 08:37pm

Rogue 9 wrote:I think he confused sentience with sapience.

You are correct sir

Lusankya · Post by **Lusankya** » 2004-11-24 02:02am

Apparently dolphin communication is much more advanced than people originally gave it credit for.

Apparently there are a certain set of criteria that must be reached for communication to be considered "language" (such as syntax, specialisation etc... I'm not sure what they all are exactly) , and when the studies were originally researched in the 70s, dolphins met a certain number of them, but for later studies, where we've had better equipment with which to study doplhin vocalisations, and there was quite a lot of communicaition going on that we just missed because it was going on too rapidly for our equipment to pick up on it, and after taking this new information into account, dolphin communication scored much more higly on the criteria.

Also, dolphins that have been taught languages created by humans that do involve syntax, etc have continued to use these aspects of communication after being released into the wild.

Hmmm...Perhaps I should do a bit of research on this and write something up in SLAM... It could be a fun summer project.

Post by **Edi** » 2004-11-24 03:01am

Lusankya wrote:Apparently dolphin communication is much more advanced than people originally gave it credit for.

Apparently there are a certain set of criteria that must be reached for communication to be considered "language" (such as syntax, specialisation etc... I'm not sure what they all are exactly) , and when the studies were originally researched in the 70s, dolphins met a certain number of them, but for later studies, where we've had better equipment with which to study doplhin vocalisations, and there was quite a lot of communicaition going on that we just missed because it was going on too rapidly for our equipment to pick up on it, and after taking this new information into account, dolphin communication scored much more higly on the criteria.

Also, dolphins that have been taught languages created by humans that do involve syntax, etc have continued to use these aspects of communication after being released into the wild.

Hmmm...Perhaps I should do a bit of research on this and write something up in SLAM... It could be a fun summer project.

This is something that has been discussed numerous times in the past. Right now the archive board seems to be down, but when it's up again, try a search for sentience, dolphins, orangutangs and use my name in the author field, should bring up the past threads, and iirc there were some links in them.

For what it's worth, dolphins have demonstrated speech-like communication and exchange of abstract concepts in captivity, without being taught. A dolphin that was taught to fetch things from the bottom of a pool solved the problem of needing to fetch from places it couldn't go (other half of pool, separated by a net, but had other dolphins in it) by talking to the other dolphins who had never had any training whatsoever, and they brought the items to it and shoved them through the net. There are other incidences where dolphins and killer whales have demonstrated very high abstract thinking capabilities and complex use of language.

Edi

Lusankya · Post by **Lusankya** » 2004-11-24 05:46am

ah well. It'll be fun to research anyway.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-11-24 03:48pm

It is somewhat strange. Even if the whole protection thing was an exaggeration, there are still documented cases of dolphins killing sharks but no cases of them attacking a human.

Maybe they find us interesting? Or maybe because they don't see us that often (unless we're in the water) they consider us a protected species?

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2004-11-24 03:54pm

It may be that they think all of us talking mammals should stick together. Or that they are smart enough only to kill us when they won't get caught.

Melkor · Post by **Melkor** » 2004-11-24 03:55pm

Or maybe they recognize the innate goodness present in all humans and realize that it deserves to be preserved.

Hah yeah right.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-11-24 04:06pm

Imperial Overlord wrote:It may be that they think all of us talking mammals should stick together. Or that they are smart enough only to kill us when they won't get caught.

I think this is true. I remember reading about accounts of dolphins killing people, but none recently, and never with a lot of witnesses around.

Of course, those accounts could be bullshit. I don't even know where I saw them. But they seemed to indicate that dolphins know to fear human retaliation on them.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-11-25 12:02am

Spyder wrote:Maybe they find us interesting?

They seem to laugh at us, the way a kookaburra 'laughs'. But then, we are pretty funny for a species, aren't we? Maybe not funny 'haha' though...

Or maybe because they don't see us that often (unless we're in the water) they consider us a protected species?

That would be the ultimate irony.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-11-25 03:56am

Just heard this was reported by the Dominion. The Dominion is a very credible source, safe to say it actually happened.

Sriad · Post by **Sriad** » 2004-11-25 04:06am

Slartibartfast wrote:Or maybe they're assholes and are stalking this specific shark and preventing him from eating

This seems like the most likely reason.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-11-25 04:14am

Bottle nose bruises and blow hole burns, this looks to be the work of teenage hooligans...

Sam Or I · Post by **Sam Or I** » 2004-11-25 05:18am

Hmmmm.... the Simpson Tree House of Horror episode comes to mind.

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2004-11-25 08:49am

What were the dolphin's thinking 'protecting' the humans?

My guess is that they were just curious/being playful about the person in question, and kept the shark away either by accident or to keep on having 'fun' checking out the weird thing in the water (the person).

Post by **weemadando** » 2004-11-25 09:15am

Majin Gojira wrote:What were the dolphin's thinking 'protecting' the humans?

My guess is that they were just curious/being playful about the person in question, and kept the shark away either by accident or to keep on having 'fun' checking out the weird thing in the water (the person).

In my several encounters with dolphins (both as boater and diver) I've found them to be curious (second only to octopus' in these stakes), playful and protective. Their pod instincts will generally encompass anything non-threatening that will swim with them.

They certainly work to protect their own - I've seen it when swimming with them, and they protect others too, not just humans, but whales and other "friendly" creatures to them. They are natures White Knights. Either that or they just fucking hate sharks.