Dolphin

Chapter 4: Dolphin

page 52: direct experience. In his forthcoming book, The Sea Inside, Philip Hoare describes an encounter with a super-pod of more than two hundred dusky dolphins (one of the species I would most like to see for myself):

I see their shapes, exquisitely airbrushed black and white and pearl-grey, swimming beneath me. Steadily the fins begin to gather and steer towards me, more and more, till I'm in an eddying mass or swooping, diving cetaceans. Everywhere I look there are dolphins; I'm encircled by them. They shoot from a single source like a shower of meteorites, their two-metre bodies zipping past, in and out of focus...

Dolphins are breaching right by me, turning somersaults in the air. How about this? Can you do that? I reach out instinctively; they easily evade me. That's not part of the game...

I look round and see dozens of dolphins heading straight at me, like a herd of buffalo. for a moment I think they're going to swim right into me. A ridiculous notion. They, like the whales, register my every dimension, both inside and out, my density, my temperature, what I am, what I am not. A dolphin's sonar, which can fire off two thousand clicks a second, is able to discern something the thickness of a fingernail from thirty feet away. At the last minute the animals swerve aside, under my legs, by my side, past my head.

page 53: saved from drowning. It may be that dolphins are treating humans in distress as they would other dolphins in their pod. See, for example, Leave No Dolphin Behind: Dolphin Pod Carries Injured Member Until She Stops Breathing.

page 55: annual cull in Taiji. a supposedly more humane a new way of killing dolphins in drive hunts is, reportedly, no more so than the previous techniques.

page 60: every dolphin has its own characteristic whistle. See, for example Dolphin whistles reveal individual names.

page 56: 'non-human persons.' For some recent commentary see When is a Person Not a Human? When it’s a Dolphin, or Chimp, or…
 
This is the fifth in a new series of notes and comments on chapters in The Book of Barely Imagined Beings. It appears around the time of the US publication, and adds to an earlier series that appeared around UK publication. 

Bloody slaughter and a drunkard on a kazoo

Tenth in a series of notes and comments on The Book of Barely Imagined Beings

Chapter 4: Dolphin

page 55: annual cull in Taiji: Latest news from Save Japan Dolphins

page 60: teaching new things: dolphins pass on acquired knowledge. One example is the use of a sponge to protect the rostrum when foraging on the sea floor to protect themselves from sharp rocks or shells.

page 62: how much their utterances resemble human language: a beluga named NOC got pretty close, though the sounds he made have been described as like a drunkard playing a kazoo.

page 63: no human has been reported to have learned dolphinese: Henry Thoreau anticipated Carl Sagan's sentiment

It is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, that you shall speak so that they can understand you. Neither men nor toadstools grow so. As if that were important, and there were not enough to understand you without them. As if Nature could support but one order of understandings, could not sustain birds as well as quadrupeds, flying as well as creeping things, and hush and whoa, which Bright can understand, were the best English. 

page 63: poor in world:

episodic memory is thought to allow us to imagine and plan for the future. This skill, known as mental time travel, was long thought to be unique to humans, but there are now some signs that a handful of other species might also be able to escape the present.

'Life loves living'

Dolphins streaming through the water, a trail of bright yellow glitter sparkling in their wake. Single spots of algae became shooting stars as dolphins torpedoed through the sea and launched through the air. One, two, three – five in the water, submarine fireworks lighting up the ocean. And then, gone...

There are many rational reasons why we should protect our oceans – jobs, development, fisheries, food – but there’s also the wonderful, and for me those reasons are equally important. They’re what keeps the fight in me alive, the cues from nature that seem to shout, ‘hey, we’re still here’. The Indian Ocean is still very much alive, and we can’t just let it go. We can’t allow the greed of a few to rob the ocean of its wonder, and plunder the bellies of future generations.

Mike Baillie for Greenpeace

Dolphin soap opera

Although bonobos, orangutans, and Western gorillas have less hostile relationships with neighboring groups than do chimpanzees, none of these species has the tolerance of the dolphins, or their ability to form alliances outside of their immediate community. Among mammals, only elephants come close; though they live in matrilineal groups, elephants maintain relationships outside of these, forming large, stratified societies. But even these large societies are still primarily with close kin, and are not changeable as are the dolphins' alliances. 

Because female dolphins give birth to only single calves that are separated by several years, the males cannot count on forming alliances with close kin. Instead, male dolphins must learn how to make and maintain friendships -- demanding social skills that are likely to have contributed to the dolphins' large brains... But it's not just the number of social relationships the dolphins must maintain, he adds. "It's the uncertainty of those third-level alliances. It's those guys you rarely see. What have they been up to since the last time you met them? Are they still on your side?"

-- from Meet the Dolphin Mafia. Original paper here. P.S. 'Will we ever...talk to dolphins?'

Eaten

The consumption of animals such as whales, dolphins and manatees is on the rise in poor nations. Declines in coastal fish catches have led people to look for other sources of meat...

Cetaceans are making their way to dinner plates as other protein sources are dwindling in coastal areas of west Africa, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines and Burma. From 1970 to 2009, at least 92 species of cetaceans were eaten by humans.

- report, paper.

A map, and the territory

This poster envisions Marine Protected Areas that would be necessary if we were to start to be serious about protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises:

World Map of all Proposed and Existing Marine Mammal Protected Areas, © Lesley Frampton, Calvin Frampton and Erich Hoyt. Click pdf for full size

Key points in accompanying press release:

· The need for greater protection: “Marine protected areas are steadily getting bigger which is good news for large marine predators with big habitats,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Director, IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme. “However, most of them are still too small, too few and far between, with too little enforcement to adequately protect whale and other highly mobile marine animal habitats.” 

· Growing threats: “At least 300,000 whales and dolphins a year end up dead in fishing nets alone, as so-called by-catch,” says Erich Hoyt, author, member of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission’s Cetacean Specialist Group and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. “Whales in some areas have been found to be emaciated. And scarcely a year since the BP Gulf Oil disaster, it’s business as usual in large parts of the Gulf and elsewhere.” 

· Protecting the high seas: “To safeguard critical ocean ecosystems and highly mobile species, we need to set aside more untouched ocean wilderness areas in the high seas,” says Patricio Bernal, Coordinator, Western Gray Whale Conservation Project. “Outside of national jurisdiction, the high seas contain only a handful of protected areas. Without effective protection this huge area, which is equivalent to 64% of the ocean’s surface, will continue to be heavily exploited in the next few years.”

Quietus

In A Long, Melancholy Roar, Olivia Judson reflects on the role of predation by other animals on Man has had on the human psyche, observes that Man is the greatest predator on Man, and that no animal besides Man commits suicide. Here is my comment:

I think I've read that some data indicates suicide rates fall during war time. If true, this is interesting, and may be significant.

There's a remarkable account by the late Australian philosopher Val Plumwood of being attacked and almost killed by a crocodile.

Another 'wild' animal that still kills humans is the elephant. The authorities in the Indian state of Orissa report 180 deaths by trampling in the last 5 years (humans had encroached on elephant territory with mining and other operations).

One commonly reads that fewer than a dozen people are killed each year by sharks. Humans, by contrast, slaughter tens of millions of sharks each year.

I'd add that some (e.g. Richard Barry) claim that dolphins have deliberately committed suicide because they are being held captive by humans in conditions that they find unbearable. (Dolphin 'suicides' such as these may be a distinct, perhaps involuntary, phenomenon.)


In The Ecocidal Moment, Rowan Williams notes that Alastair McIntosh speaks of:

"ecocidal" patterns of consumption as addictive and self-destructive. Living like this is living at a less than properly human level – McIntosh suggests we may need therapy, what he describes as a "cultural psychotherapy" to liberate us. That liberation may or may not be enough to avert disaster. But what we do know – or should know – is that we are living inhumanly.

Inhumanely, perhaps; but all too humanly.

Falling for dolphins

Serge Brunier has a nice photo of the Milky Way. [1]

It is reported that in a collection of stories called Bhagavata purana:

all the visible stars and planets moving through space are likened to a dolphin that swims through the water

Well maybe. It's important not to be sentimental about cetaceans. Dan Everett has a nice story though:

It was about 5:45, the most beautiful time of day, when the sun glows orange and the river’s reflective darkness stands out against the rusty color of sky and the luxuriant spinach green of the jungle. As I sat idly watching and sipping my coffee, I was startled by the sight of two small gray porpoises jumping in synch out of the river. I had no idea that there were freshwater porpoises. Almost immediately, from around the bend came two Pirahã canoes, their riders paddling for all they were worth, in pursuit of the porpoises, trying to touch them with their paddles. It was a game of tag, porpoise tag.

Apparently the porpoises enjoyed themselves because they continually came up just out of reach of the men in canoes. This went on for half an hour, until darkness brought an end to the chase. The Pirahã in the canoes and on the banks (for by now a crowd had gathered) were laughing hysterically. As they stopped chasing the porpoises, the porpoises disappeared. (In all my years watching this contest between mammals, no porpoise has ever been 'tagged').

Everett also writes that:

the most striking thing I remember about seeing the Pirahãs for the first time was how happy everyone seemed.

I assume that when Everett says porpoise he is in fact referring to the Amazon River Dolphin, Inia Geoffrensis.

Footnote

[1] P.S. 22 Sep: A picture of Milky Way centre by Stéphane Guisard.

Strange fruit

Andy Revkin posts a photo of a bear in a chair and asks his readers what unorthodox wildlife encounters they have had.

The Guardian used to run a series called Unsettling Animal Photo of the Week. Here's one for that: 'KDog', a military dolphin

The narrow gate

Consider Hector’s dolphin, a species that lives in the coastal waters off New Zealand, and that, these days, often gets tangled up in fishing nets. The dolphins are rare: there are thought to be fewer than 4000 individuals at large. They also have rather low genetic diversity — a factor that, combined with small populations, is thought to be a risk factor for extinction. But perhaps there isn’t really a problem: perhaps their genetic diversity has always been low?

It hasn’t. Specimens of the dolphin have been collected since the 1870s. A comparison of DNA from the museum material with that from dolphins out and about today shows that genetic diversity has eroded substantially over the past 130 odd years. If we’re not careful, Hector’s dolphin may not be with us much longer.

--from Dawn at the museum by Olivia Judson

In 2007, WWF New Zealand said that just over 7,000 Hector's Dolphins lived in South Island Waters. In 1970 there were more than 26,000. Of Maui's Dolphin, a subspecies found on the west coast of North Island and nowhere else, there were about 110.

Brahmaputra blues

An IUCN press release:

Dolphin hotspots must be protected if the Ganges River Dolphin...is to survive in the Brahmaputra river system, according to a recent study. [1]

Estimates have put the total population... at around 2,000. Of these, between 240 to 300 inhabit the Brahmaputra River system in India...

“Our research shows accidental killing through fisheries by-catch, followed by poaching for oil, are the major threats to the dolphins of the Brahmaputra...” says Project Leader Abdul Wakid. “Their habitat is also being degraded by human activities. Dam building and a proposed seismsic survey in the Brahmaputra river are potential threats.”

The project...was prompted by the need for some robust dolphin population data after Oil India Ltd. proposed to start prospecting for oil along the bed of the Brahmaputra River using air guns and explosives.

The research identified eight river sections as potential protected areas and community-based dolphin conservation as the best strategy to save the dolphins.

How effective can a few protected 'hotspots' along the length of the river be? On the Yangtze, by Sam Turvey's account [2], the conservation areas proposed at one stage for river dolphins were quite far apart. Given that the animals probably traveled large distances up and downstream, the protection afforded by such areas would probably have been quite limited. In practice the reserves only ever really existed on paper so were never put to the test.

When I met Turvey last month I asked what he thought about of the prospects for the Ganges River Dolphin. He said he was just starting to look at the challenge but was struck that some individuals appeared to be surviving even in what looked like unfavourable conditions in the Kulsi, one of two smaller rivers in Assam in which the animal still lives in addition to the main channel of the Brahmaputra. [3]

What are the chances for successful community-based conservation on the Brahmaputra? If you believe Arundhati Roy, such efforts will be up against very powerful forces. [4]

Platanista gangetica, the Ganges River Dolphin has dwindled abysmally to less than 2000 during the last century owing to direct killing, habitat fragmentation by dams and barrages, indiscriminate fishing and pollution of the rivers. WWF India

Footnotes

[1] Protection of endangered Ganges River Dolphin in Brahmaputra river, Assam, India, Final Technical Report (pdf)

[2] Witness to Extinction: How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin (2008).

[3] Turvey wrote (e mail, 25 June):

I only recently visited India to try to establish a collaborative conservation project on these remarkable animals...We [hope] to investigate when and why the species has disappeared from the Brahmaputra’s other tributaries. Some kind of human impact is certain, but is this overfishing, habitat degradation, mining, deforestation leading to increased erosion and run-off, etc etc.... who knows? The Kulsi was the first place that I saw the river dolphins, and as you can see from the photo, it's pretty horrendous habitat. In my opinion it's incredible that dolphins have managed to survive here at all! Seeing a river dolphin leaping out of the water, showing its mysterious, beautiful crocodile-like beak, in that fairly nasty, tiny little river against a backdrop of sand-mining and fishing boats was pretty surreal. The question of whether this is in any way a sustainable long-term habitat for them is another matter... at least the Brahmaputra itself seems a lot better, although this environment too is under increasing threat.

An AP report published the Straits Times quotes Gill Braulik, a researcher who took part in the study:

To protect them it is vital that we involve local river communities. In some places, like in the Kukurmara area of Kulsi River, the dolphins are a tourist attraction due to protection by local communities.

[4] Speaking on Nightwaves (BBC Radio 3, week of 13 - 18 July), Roy said India in democracy is a scam, "democracy for few, with the vast majority excluded":

The middle classes and upper classes have seceded from the rest of India. They are extracting everything they can from the ground and rivers. It's leading to....ecocide. Far from progress, the opposite is on the cards -- a collapse.

She was not talking specifically about the Brahmaputra, but in general about India's rivers and land. Is she right to blame 'only' the relatively wealthy for 'ecocide'?

Witness

The extinction of the Baiji has become iconic but it was just one of the topics outlined by Sam Turvey in a hard-headed presentation about priorities in conversation at a 20 June conference called The Open Ground. [1]

My contribution was less focused and more touchy-feely: a few half-formed comments on 'values' and 'stories'. It's posted here.

Turvey, whose work includes Witness to Extinction, applied some welcome caustic to the sentimentality that can sometimes creep into Western accounts of the death of this dolphin. [2] Western agencies failed to put money where their mouths were, and the Chinese authorities were hopeless. The extinction, Turvey and others have shown, was probably not inevitable.

That said, with the Yangtze as a main highway, sewer, food and power source for about one tenth of humanity it's remarkable that the baiji and other remarkable species such as Chinese sturgeon survived as long as they did. [3], [4]


Footnotes

[1] Emily Nicholson was equally rigorous. I cannot comment on presentations by Mel Challenger, Ruth Padel, John Fa, Armand Leroi and others because I left before they spoke in order to take part in a workshop titled Changing Climate Stories, on which see Ashdenizen, Springcoppice and Samantha Ellis. It was one of those days when you want to be in at least two places at once.

[2] I asked Turvey (whose book I have not read; I will now) if it was true that people only started eating the Baiji during the 1958-61 famine. He said, if I understood him correctly, that consumption (a contributory factor in its decline but not a main driver) probably began before that. Westerners tend to over-idealise earlier Chinese views of nature (appealing as some of those memories and imaginings are)

[3] In a piece of framing that was new to me, Turvey called the Yangtze 'the Amazon of the East.' This phrase may have been shamelessly manufactured by conservationists with an agenda. If so, good for them. Before large-scale human impact the banks of the river may have been as wondrously rich with life forms as the river itself. No sooner is the point made than you say 'of course', but it is not necessarily a thought that readily occurs otherwise. Time to go back to Mark Elvin's The Retreat of the Elephants.

[4] Du Fu writes

The solitary goose does not drink or eat,
It flies about and calls, missing the flock.
No-one now remembers this one shadow,
They've lost each other in the myriad layers of cloud.
It looks into the distance: seems to see,
It's so distressed, it thinks that it can hear.
Unconsciously, the wild ducks start to call,
Cries of birds are everywhere confused.

Making lunch

Man may be the only animal that cooks, but some dolphins, it seems, know how to butcher (Bottlenose dolphin shows off her butchering skills).

Reflection, isolation

Our gregarious great ape cousins — chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas — along with dolphins and Asian elephants, have passed the famed mirror self-recognition test, which means they will, when given a mirror, scrutinize marks that had been applied to their faces or bodies. The animals also will check up on personal hygiene, inspecting their mouths, nostrils and genitals.

Yet not all members of a certifiably self-reflective species will pass the mirror test. Tellingly,...“animals raised in isolation do not seem to show mirror self-recognition.”

-- from an article on mirrors and psychology.

Supersize me

On Tuesday, [Georgia] aquarium officials announced plans for a $110 million expansion, increasing itself by 1.5 million gallons, most of which will be used for dolphin windows, dolphin shows and something called “dolphin encounters.”...

...The new addition may...eclipse the size of an aquarium, claiming to be the “world’s largest indoor marine mammal pavilion,” that is being built in the mammoth Dubai Mall and due to open in the United Arab Emirates in 2009.

See also Between Dubai and the deep blue sea.

Going

The vast majority of the Bengal coast’s marine life begins in the nursery of the Sundarbans; fifty-three species of reptiles are harbored here, more than two hundred species of birds, and at least fifty species of mammals, including the endangered Irrawaddy and Gangetic dolphins, the Smooth Indian otter and the cheetah-spotted fishing cat. A hundred years ago, there were Java rhino, wild buffalo, and swamp deer.

-- from Tigerland by Caroline Alexander.

When combined to the pressure from a growing human population, what will be the consequences for the Sunderbans of a sea level rise of a meter and half or more?

Between Dubai and the deep blue sea

In a ramshackle fishing village on the outskirts of Honiara [in the Solomon Islands], Robert Satu holds up a necklace made of dolphin teeth. Up to 20 dolphins were killed to make it, he estimates, draping the heavy ceremonial jewellery around his neck.

'We cut them like this,' he says, drawing his hand across his throat, indicating how the animals are decapitated and the teeth prised out. During the slaughter, he says, the sea turns crimson.

-- from an article by Barbara McMahon titled South Seas dolphins face slaughter for their teeth - or life in captivity. But, as her accompanying audio report indicates, some people think that is, or should be, a false choice.