I’m watching a video of a Killer Whale attacking a sailboat in the Mediterranean Sea. There was also an article about young Killer Whales, attacking boats in the Med. There wasn’t any conclusive evidence why this is happening. Could it be due to climate change? I don’t know, as I’m writing this, while I’m awaiting Tropical Storm to pass Naples, Florida this afternoon. It’s been raining all night, and the storm is picking up the wind speed to about 65mph.
But, lets get back to whales, and dolphins. I hope this is not the norm, but just an isolated incident. Yesterday, I watched a video of snorkelers removing a hook form the jaw of a Sperm Whale. After the hook was removed, the whale came back to the snorkelers, as if to thank them. This is the interaction that I believe.
I read another account of how whales, and dolphins are saving people from death, and injury. It doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact, I’m just happy to hear about other stories, to justify the fact that these marine mammals are highly intelligent animals, and that they do not hold a grudge against humans for trying to eradicate their species from the earth.
This story concerns a Humpback Whale. It seems that a humpback whale researcher, slid into the water to be with a pod of Humpback Whales in a lagoon. Almost immediately, a female Humpback came up to her, and with its enormous fin, brought the researcher close to its body for several minutes. The researcher was not alarmed, but she couldn’t understand why the Humpback reacted to her in this way. It was only after the whale released her, and she swam back, and boarded her boat, that she saw a very large Tiger Shark cruising the lagoon. She realized that the whale instinctively protected her from harm.
One of my favorite stories, was told to me several years ago. It was about wild dolphins interacting with divers, and snorkelers. I met diver from Connecticut who was conducting dolphin research. He had started a non-profit organization, and was working out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. During his research, he found a particular lagoon in the Bahamas, where dolphins would congregate. In order to fund his non-profit, he would take divers, and snorkelers aboard his boat, to dive and swim with the dolphins, in exchange for contributions. He had a very strict rule, that no one was to pursue, or touch the dolphins. If the dolphins were comfortable with the group, then they would come to the people, and interact with them. On one of his trips, there was a fifty-year old man, diving at a depth of forty-feet. All of a sudden, a dolphin swarm up to his side. The man felt the dolphin’s echo-location scanning his body. Then the dolphin placed its pectoral fin under the man, and slowly brought him back to the surface. Once on the surface, the dolphin deposited the man on the boats swim platform. Thereupon, the man suffered a minor heart attack. The dolphin, through its echo-location, sensed that the man was in danger, and saved his life.
When I was actively photographing whales, twice a year off the coast of, P Town, Provincetown, MA, I would look into the eyes of these magnificent creatures. I knew that, there was an intelligence looking back at me.
