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Dolphin Saves Whales


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NZ dolphin guides stranded whales

Wednesday Mar 12 11:20 AEDT

AP - A playful New Zealand dolphin used to swimming round humans has amazed conservation workers by guiding two distressed whales back to sea away from likely death on a beach.

 

The dolphin led the two pygmy sperm whales 200 metres along the beach and through a channel to the open sea, Department of Conservation worker Malcolm Smith said on Wednesday.

 

The two whales, a mother and her young calf, were found stranded on Mahia Beach, on North Island's east coast on Monday morning, Smith said.

 

"We worked for over an hour to try to get them back out to sea ... but they kept getting disorientated and stranding again" after swimming into a large sandbar just off the shore, he said.

 

 

 

 

"They obviously couldn't find their way back past it to the sea," Smith said.

 

Four attempts by volunteers to refloat the pair failed and it was becoming highly likely they would have to be euthanised, he said.

 

Then the dolphin, named Moko by local residents, swam up.

 

"It was looking like it was going to be a bad outcome for the whales which was very disappointing and then Moko just came along and fixed it."

 

Smith said it was quite possible Moko had heard the whales calling.

 

"The whales were ... quite distressed. They had arched their backs and were calling to one another, but as soon as the dolphin turned up they submerged into the water and followed her," he said.

 

"She obviously gave them enough guidance to leave the area because we haven't seen them since," Smith said.

 

"The things that happen in nature never cease to amaze me."

 

Moko returned to the beach shortly afterward.

 

The playful dolphin swam straight back close to shore and joined in water games with local residents, he added.

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This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes... from Douglas Adams:

 

"It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reason."

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Anthony's perspective:

 

I know this story won't melt even one gram of the hearts of ice of the 30 or so dolphin murderers in Taiji, Japan, who massacre dolphins by the thousand every year. Nor would it move any national government to even politely ask Japan to discontinue the barbaric practice, for fear of course of Japan possibly pulling some economic lever which might lower their national GDP by a few thousand dollars/pounds/euros as the case may be. But I do hope that it will endear the dolphin to more people whose love for cats and dogs and cows and chickens and pigs has proven exemplary.

 

We humans pride ourselves of our marvelous brain, and in fact this has been a factor used to differentiate killing (of smaller-brained animals) from murdering (of humans). Abstractly speaking, our minds have proven so far capable of reaching the observable limits of the known Universe, which is near-infinite, as well as the inner workings of a quark, which is infinitesimal, as well as geological time spanning more than 12 billion years, which makes the 5,000 years of human history almost invisible. We have issued amazing yet amazingly true statements like "We are the way by which the Universe understands itself." And all within a biological mass no larger than 1,450 cc, called the human brain.

 

Whether size matters remains a heated debate, but where ethics is concerned, I question the justifiability of killing a chimpanzee whose brain measures "only" 600 cc, or using one for medical research that would benefit only humans, or the dog in the next cage, whose species is honored, by humans, as "man's best friend". The fact that chimpazees have beaten humans in intelligence tests (see video in www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr) has so far not seemed to have improved their treatment at the hands of certain humans.

 

Even if brain size were an ethically approvable criterion to differentiate killing from murdering, which is not to say that "merely" killing, of a deer or a duck, is ethically justifiable, then killing a dolphin is certified murder, because it's brain size is not only comparable to that of a human, but exceeds it, at a total volume of 1,600 cc, by 150 ccs. And this is inaddition to that the dolphin brain is much more convoluted than the human brain (where convolution is equated to IQ), and has an extra lobe a human brain has not.

 

I have wondered what the dolphins use their immense brain power for. Lacking appendages as we do for physical manipulating of objects (I'm not hinting at pyschokenesis here) or for making extra-somatic memory devices, I believe that dolphins use their great brains for memory storage, and their still-undeciphered languages to transmit this memory from generation to generation. If this is true, then killing a school of dolphins would be more than biological murder, but potentially the termination of a line of memory which might go back for thousands or even millions of years. In this light, a dolphin born in captivitive and raised by humans to look intelligent by performing tricks is in fact "uncultured".

 

Like dogs having saved human on land, dolphins have been documented to save humans from drowning at sea, despite our atrocities against them and their infants. Some selfish-of-heart might say that they do this to appease our species. But what do they stand to gain by saving whales? Only one thing, as far as I can see. What they stand to gain is happiness, of the kind that floods our hearts when we have saved a sentient being from suffering and death.

 

It is not a legend I'm citing, but a story hot off the press today. Read and applaud.

 

Anthony Marr, founder

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)

www.HOPE-CARE.org

www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr

www.ARConference.org

 

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Dolphin appears to rescue stranded whales

'Altruistic' animal guides mother, calf back out to sea in New Zealandupdated 3:37 a.m. PT, Wed., March. 12, 2008

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Most days, Moko the bottlenosed dolphin swims playfully with humans at a New Zealand beach. But this week, it seems, Moko found his mojo.

 

Witnesses described Wednesday how they saw the dolphin swim up to two stranded whales and guide them to safety.

 

Before Moko arrived, rescue workers had been working for more than an hour to get two pygmy sperm whales, a mother and her calf, back out to sea after they were stranded Monday off Mahia Beach, said Conservation Department worker Malcolm Smith.

 

But Smith said the whales restranded themselves four times on a sandbar slightly out to sea from the beach, about 300 miles northeast of the capital, Wellington. It looked likely they would have to be euthanized to prevent a prolonged death, he said.

 

'Disorientated'

 

"They kept getting disorientated and stranding again," said Smith, who was among the rescuers. "They obviously couldn't find their way back past (the sandbar) to the sea."

 

Then along came Moko, who approached the whales and appeared to lead them as they swam 200 yards along the beach and through a channel out to the open sea.

 

"Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales," Juanita Symes, another rescuer, told The Associated Press. "She got them to head toward the hill, where the channel is. It was an amazing experience."

 

Anton van Helden, a marine mammals expert at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, said the reports of Moko's rescue were "fantastic" but believable because the dolphins have "a great capacity for altruistic activities."

 

These included evidence of dolphins protecting people lost at sea, and their playfulness with other animals.

 

"But it's the first time I've heard of an inter-species refloating technique. I think that's wonderful," said van Helden, who was not involved in the rescue but spoke afterward to Smith.

 

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Anthony Marr, founder

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)

www.HOPE-CARE.org

www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr

www.ARConference.org

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It's a nice story As far as I know, dolphins are pretty much like a whale, or are a type of whale or something, so I guess their form of communication must have similiarities for this to work as it did, which is interesting

A dolphin is a whale. This might have something to do with it. But on the other hand it's not like we (humans) are bending backwards to save monkeys. Or anything for that matter.

 

Anyhoot, I like Douglas Adams.

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