I recently spotted a (moderately old) New Zealand Stuff story about dolphins saving swimmers from a great white shark (the BBC also has a story on the same incident). This is a warm and fuzzy story (despite the fact that dolphins are neither warm nor fuzzy), because it's nice to believe that there are mysteries to the depths, and that those same dolphins that we are busy killing off with our tuna fishing still instinctively want to protect us. Stories about dolphins saving shipwrecked sailors are legendary. The only problem is, I was once told by a marine biologist that the dolphins in such stories might not always be trying to help — sometimes they're just playing with the living humans in exactly the same manner that they play with driftwood, and that stories of dolphins rescuing humans are grossly overinflated.
So now I'm not sure what to make of this. This most recent story certainly seems compelling, and various marine biologists have come out to say that it's not unusual at all.
Auckland University marine mammal research scientist Rochelle Constantine said dolphins were normally vigilant in the presence of sharks.The altruistic response of the dolphins was normal, she said.
"They like to help the helpless."
The slapping of their tails on the water was the dolphins' way of communicating and could have been a grouping function to bring them all together, Dr Constantine said.
Ingrid Visser, who has been studying marine mammals for 14 years, said there had been reports from around the world of dolphins protecting swimmers.
"They (the dolphins) could have sensed the danger to the swimmers and taken action to protect them," she said.
Miss Visser, of Orca Research, said dolphins would attack sharks to protect themselves and their young.
I hunted around for a little while on the web looking for more information on dolphin intelligence and dolphins rescuing humans, and didn't really find anything decisive (though I did find an interesting news site related to dolphins). So maybe both things are true: sometimes dolphins are trying to help us, and sometimes they're just playing with us... and maybe they're all just playing with our heads.
Still, that doesn't keep me from wanting to go swimming with dolphins someday. After all, I like to play too.
tursiops.org
Thanks for the plug for my site!
Dolfin
http://tursiops.org/