Dolphins are incredibly intelligent animals, with brains almost the same size as a human’s,
and they’ve made numerous headlines for their amazing achievements.
From saving people from shark attacks to rescuing dogs from drowning, here are 8 amazing real-life
dolphin stories!!
8.
RESCUING HUMANS FROM SHARKS
In 2014, athlete Adam Walker was going on an open-water swim for a special event.
The eight-hour and 36-minute long swim in the Cook Strait of New Zealand was rather
uneventful until he noticed what appeared to be a six-foot-long great white shark lurking
nearby.
That will get your heart rate going!!
Then suddenly, a group of about ten dolphins surrounded Walker and started swimming alongside
him, causing the predator to flee the scene.
The dolphins continued to surround the athlete for the next hour, ensuring his safety after
his close call with the shark.
It’s funny because Walker at the time was swimming to support a global nonprofit organization
called Whale and Dolphin Conservation, so the two parties are mutually helping each
other in different ways.
It’s not unheard of for dolphins to save humans from vicious sharks in the waters off
New Zealand.
Four lifeguards were rescued in 2004 by a pod of dolphins that encircled them and warded
off a shark that was swimming dangerously close by, investigating.
In 2007, a school of bottlenose dolphins stopped a shark attack on surfer Todd Endris after
he was bitten by the shark.
The dolphins protected him while he swam to shore and sought emergency first aid.
Thanks to the dolphins, Endris survived the attack.
7.
DOG RESCUED BY DOLPHINS
Dolphins aren’t just known for rescuing humans.
When an 11-year-old Doberman Pinscher named Turbo found himself in a bind back in 2011,
a group of dolphins saved the day.
Turbo had ran off and his human companion, Cindy Burnett, discovered him missing when
she arrived at her Florida home at two o’clock in the morning one day.
He was missing for over 15 hours when a neighbor who lived several streets away heard splashing
noises coming from a nearby canal.
She discovered Turbo stranded in the shallow water and surrounded by dolphins, who allowed
the woman to climb into the canal and retrieve the dog.
Then, she dialed 911.
Turbo was shivering and distressed, and had some cuts and scrapes on his legs and paws,
but he emerged from the ordeal mostly unscathed, thanks to the dolphins, who made enough of
a ruckus to alert his owner’s neighbor.
If they hadn’t have been there to help poor Turbo, who seemed to have been stuck in the
water for quite some time already, he may have drowned.
6.
DOLPHIN SAVES DROWNING BOY
Nearly two decades ago, a 14-year-old boy named Davide Ceci lost his grip as he hung
from the side of his father’s motorboat and fell into the Adriatic Sea, off the southeast
coast of Italy.
Davide’s father, Emanuele, didn’t notice that his son had fallen overboard.
A bottlenose dolphin, known to the local fishermen as Filippo, rushed over to the boy, who was
unable to swim, and pushed his body toward the surface of the water.
When the boy realized it was Filippo, he grabbed onto the dolphin, who then pushed him back
toward his father’s boat.
Once Davide had been returned to safety, Filippo didn’t stick around to receive any due praise.
Instead, the humble protector quickly turned around and swam away.
Until this incident, 850-pound Filippo was simply a local celebrity and tourist attraction
who had been hanging around the area’s waters for about two years, ever since he was separated
from a school of dolphins that had been passing through.
But the dolphin’s quick thinking and swift efforts quickly elevated him to the status
of an internationally-known hero!
5.
MILITARY DOLPHINS
Four countries are known to have trained dolphins for military purposes: the United States,
the Soviet Union/Russia, Ukraine, and Iran.
In 1960, the U.S. Navy began using bottlenose dolphins for things like mine detection and
for help detecting submarines, underwater weapons, and suspicious objects and people
near ships and harbors.
Out of more than 19 marine animals that had been tested for these types of work, including
some sharks and birds, dolphins and sea lions were determined to be the most suitable.
Dolphins were especially useful for detecting underwater mines due to their highly-evolved
biosonar.
It was the height of the Cold War, so naturally, the Soviet Union followed suit.
The Soviet Navy opened a research facility to explore the possible military uses of marine
mammals in 1965.
When the Soviet union fell, their military dolphin program was taken over by the newly-established
Ukrainian Navy.
Retired Colonel Viktor, who supervised the dolphin program during the Soviet and post-Soviet
periods, claimed in an interview with AFP that the dolphins could detect abandoned torpedoes
and sunken ships in the Black Sea, as well as plant explosives on enemy vessels.
According to Baranets, the training center was neglected following the Ukrainian takeover
of the project.
In 2000, the program’s dolphins were reportedly sold to Iran, and the chief trainer relocated
to the new oceanarium to continue his research.
In 2012, Ukraine re-established their military dolphin training center, which fell back under
Russian control in March 2014, when Russia annexed the now-formerly-Ukrainian Crimea
region.
The Russian government fell under the suspicion of the media in 2018, when they purchased
five more bottlenose dolphins without explanation, indicating that they perhaps had plans to
expand the program.
The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, based in San Diego, currently has around 75 trained
dolphins.
In addition to their continued use for detecting underwater mines, the dolphins are also trained
in object recovery and to rescue lost naval swimmers.
4.
DOLPHIN-ASSISTED HUMAN BIRTHS
There is a growing trend of people who believe in the healing power of dolphins and are attributing
them with almost magical, or spiritual powers.
Star Newland is the founder of The Sirius Institute, located in Hawaii, which focuses
on establishing cohabitation environments between humans and dolphins.
According to the institute’s website, this means the facilitation of people and porpoises
learning from one another “through music, underwater birth, dolphin sound healing and
restoration.”
In May 2013, Time magazine featured an article about one couple, Heather and Mike Barrington,
who relocated to Hawaii months before their baby’s July due date to participate in the
program.
The couple regularly spent time in the water, getting to know and connect with a dolphin
pod, whom they hoped would form a bond with their newborn baby when the time came.
Some of the alleged benefits of dolphin-assisted birth that are listed on The Sirius Institute’s
website are pretty extreme, including: “Children born in the water with the dolphins develop
6 months faster over their first six months, have perhaps 150 grams more brain weight and
are ambidextrous.”
The site also claims that dolphins have the miraculous ability to heal conditions such
as Down’s Syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism.
Is there any merit to these purported benefits of dolphin-assisted births?
Nobody seems to know, and it’s unclear if any couple has successfully experienced a
water birth in the company of dolphins.
An interest in the practice has, however, grown in popularity in recent years, along
with increased participation in prenatal bonding with dolphins.
Still, prospective candidates for a dolphin-assisted birth are cautioned by skeptics - and, perhaps,
people equipped with basic common sense - about the risks associated with the procedure, including
waterborne illnesses, drowning, and the sometimes unpredictable behavior of dolphins, despite
their typically friendly demeanor.
They are smart, and they can also be cruel.
3.
FISHING ASSISTANTS
In Laguna, Brazil, dolphins help fishermen with their yearly fish catch.
Researchers aren’t sure why, but a group of 20 dolphins eagerly help with the task,
while all other dolphins remain uncooperative.
Working together, the dolphins herd groups of a fish called mullet, an important local
source of food, toward fishermen who are lined up either in boats or in knee-deep water.
Then, the dolphins tell the fishermen when and where to throw their nets by signaling
with specialized head or tail slaps.
According to researchers, the dolphins and fishermen are dependent upon each other.
Fábio Daura-Jorge of the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil noted in a 2007
statement to LiveScience that nearly 200 fishermen rely exclusively upon the dolphins.
Otherwise, they can’t fish without them!
They know them so well, they recognize them by their markings and can identify them with
the naked eye.
This collaboration has existed for a long time, according to Daura-Jorge, who also pointed
out that the dolphins have names and that some had been helping the fishermen for over
15 years.
Researchers ultimately identified three distinct social groups of dolphins in Laguna, one of
which was compiled entirely of dolphins that are cooperative with the fishermen.
They determined that the helpful activity is either learned or inherited, but that it’s
not environmental.
Much like elder fishermen pass their skills onto younger ones, it’s thought that dolphins
teach their calves to assist with fishing.
2.
DOLPHINS HELPING DOLPHINS
I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that dolphins have the capacity to be incredibly
helpful to humans and other animals, such as Turbo, the Doberman Pinscher.
Naturally, they also look out for their own.
Video footage captured in 2008 showed a group of dolphins working together to form a “life
raft” of sorts for an injured member of their pod.
As Kyum Park and his colleagues from the Cetacean Research Institute in Ulsan, South Korea observed
a group of 12 dolphins swimming unusually close together, they noticed a female in the
middle of the crowd, in apparent distress.
Her flippers seemed paralyzed and she was wriggling around helplessly and from side-to-side
in the water, sometimes turning upside-down.
For about a half hour, the other dolphins supported her from underneath her body.
Then, two dolphins swam side-by-side, supporting her on their backs and enabling her to breathe
by keeping her above the water.
Eventually, the injured female dolphin assumed a vertical position in the water.
Some of the helper dolphins had swum away by then, but the remaining ones tried pushing
her back into a position they could support her in.
Unfortunately, she died, and five dolphins stayed near her and touched her body until
she sank to her final resting place.
Conflicting and unsure opinions resulted among researchers after the incident.
While some believe the behavior of the dolphins indicates their ability to empathize on a
level animals are generally not thought to be capable of, others see the seemingly compassionate
act of helping an injured group member as a way for dolphins to attempt to keep their
family strong or preserve their genes as best they can by preventing the deaths of relatives
as much as possible.
1.
DOLPHINS RESCUE TEENAGER
In 2012, field biologist Maddalena Bearzi recounted a particular event that stuck out
in her mind throughout her career.
One day, as she followed a school of bottlenose dolphins in the waters off LA with her research
team, one of the dolphins suddenly diverted away from the rest of its group and headed
for deeper waters - an uncharacteristic behavior to the team, who routinely observed dolphins
swimming in the shallow coastal waters.
The rest of the pod followed suit, and the scientists struggled to keep their boat up
with the fast swimmers.
Finally, the dolphins stopped about three miles offshore and formed a ring around what
the researchers could only identify as a “dark object” at first.
The research crew then noticed what the hype was all about: a limp, seemingly lifeless
body of a teenage girl, but she weakly signaled for help with her hand.
They cut the engine of their boat and radioed to lifeguards, who advised them to wait and
not to take any actions.
But time was of the essence when it came to saving the girl’s life, and an executive
decision was made to pull the drowning, hypothermic girl into the boat.
There was no time to wait for the lifeguards, and the teenage girl was taken to the nearest
emergency room.
The multilingual crew attempted, to no avail, to communicate with the girl, but she didn’t
know English, French, or Spanish.
She also had a plastic bag around her neck.
Later, the researchers learned from an ER doctor that the girl was a German tourist
visiting LA and that the plastic bag around her neck had contained a suicide note.
The doctor also told them that if they hadn’t followed the dolphins and discovered the girl
when they did, she would have certainly died.
Want more fascinating animal stories?
Subscribe to Origins Explained and be sure to check out our animal rescue videos!
See you soon!
Byeeeee!!