This past week I read another story about how whales and dolphins are saving people’s lives.
I am not surprised at all. It just makes me very happy to hear another story to justify the fact, that these marine mammals are highly intelligent. That they apparently are not holding a grudge against humans for trying to eradicate the species from the earth. I wonder what would happen if they really did?
The story I read this week concerns humpback whales. A humpback whale researcher, slid into the water to be with a pod of humpback whales in a lagoon. It was in a lagoon that she regularly visited, as was the pod of humpback whales.
Almost immediately, a female humpback came up to her, and with its enormous fin, brought the researcher close to its body. The researcher was not alarmed, but couldn’t understand why the humpback reacted in this way.
It was only after she left the water, and boarded her boat, that she saw a very large tiger shark cursing the lagoon, and the humpback instinctively protected her from harm. Another example of how these amazing creatures interact with us.
One of my favorite stories was told to me many years ago. I met a diver and dolphin researcher who was working out of Fort Lauderdale. There was a lagoon in the Bahamas, where wild dolphins would congregate. He would take divers, and snorkelers aboard his boat to dive and swim with them, in exchange for contributions so he could continue his research. His strict rule was, not to pursue the dolphins, but if the dolphins wanted, they would come to the people, and interact with them.
One of the divers was a fifty-year old man, and he was diving at a depth of forty-feet. All of a sudden, a dolphin swam to side. He felt the dolphin’s echo-location scanning his body. Then the dolphin placed its fin under the man, and brought him back to the surface, and deposited him on the swim platform. Thereupon, the man suffered a mild heart attack.
When I was actively photographing whales, I would look into the eyes of these magnificent creatures, and I knew then, that there was an intelligence, looking back at me.
These stories, and many others, only confirm it.
