Twenty Years with the Dolphins Page #4

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Big Eye was standing in front of us,

mimicking both the motions of our bodies

and the output from the computer.

If I was going up,

the machine, let's say...

Yeah.

And I do that maybe once or twice.

And then the dolphins would go...

It adds something to it.

And there I was, stuck like a dummy,

with only being able

to push the box back.

And I felt like I wanted

to generate something

new on top of what they did because it

was clearly an interaction.

I can just as easily imagine

the dolphins are still questioning

whether we're intelligent or

not based on our inability

to respond to them.

Though this was a great success,

I knew that to move

the experiment further,

we'd have to be able to

replay and manipulate

those sounds in real time.

It would take nearly two decades

before technology would

give us the means to do this.

The White Sand Ridge

where the dolphins live

is nearly 40 miles from land, and offers

no protection from the weather.

Hurricanes are common in this area.

But when one made an unexpected turn

in our direction, we couldn't resist

staying a little longer to see

how the dolphins reacted.

They loved it, surfing

the waves and generally

having a great time.

I went in briefly to see

what it was like.

The dolphins were as excited as

I'd ever seen them, positively

thriving on the rough seas.

For me, being in the water

in those conditions

was more like being in

a washing machine than snorkeling.

Yet, here was Chopper,

having the time of his life.

But as the wind continued to build,

we couldn't risk staying any longer,

and headed south to calmer waters,

to the island of Bimini, about 80 miles

from the White Sand Ridge.

There, we could work closer to land.

This also gave us a chance

to see if there might be

other friendly dolphins around.

We decided to scout for

schools of spotters in areas

where currents and bottom contours were

similar to the White Sand Ridge.

As the weather cleared, we

started our search just north

of this fabled island.

It was strange studying

spotted dolphins,

for whom I had no history.

I didn't know any of

the individuals here.

But the thought of getting

to know a whole new school

was exciting.

The sand here is not nearly

so white as up north.

But it still provides

quite a bit of contrast

to help the dolphins avoid predators.

One of the first identifications

we made was of an adult female,

with much of her left

pectoral fin missing.

She closely resembled another female

we'd identified in the north.

But we'd need other data before

this qualified as a match.

Nevertheless, it raised

the question of whether there's

any connection between

the Bimini spotters

and those on the White Sand Ridge?

We identified another dolphin, which

appeared to be scarred from

fishing line that had once been

wrapped around its tail stalk.

I'd seen this kind of injury

on seals and sea lions

before, but never on a dolphin.

While we were able to

gather only a handful

of identifications here, we were

excited to see that Atlantic

spotted dolphins seemed to be

unusually friendly and curious

towards humans.

In the middle 1980s, Denise Herzing,

a dedicated and talented scientist,

began working on the White Sand Ridge,

studying the dolphins Hardy and

Julia had first filmed in 1978.

She, too, was interested

in a possible connection

between the Bimini school

and the northern group.

On a recent visit to

the White Sand Ridge,

we hailed her vessel, "Stenella."

"Ocean Explorer," "Stenella," 7, 2.

Calling 7, 2.

Since 1985, Denise Herzing

has maintained one of the longest

continual studies of

free-swimming marine mammals

ever conducted.

You could not interpret

communication very well

without knowing the players.

And that's why we had to

invest so much time in IDs

because if you have five

animals and they're interacting,

to interpret what's going on,

it's nice to know, well, that's

the sibling of that one, or

that's the calf of that one,

or mother, whatever,

because then the behavior

starts making more sense.

Of course, one of the most interesting

questions I had for Denise was

whether she'd seen Chopper?

Well, we certainly saw

that particular dolphin

when I came out here in '85.

We had seen his old shots on your films.

So we knew he had been

around, certainly previously.

He's been a real regular

dolphin up here with us.

We've seen him grow up.

And we've been monitoring who he's

associated with over the years.

And we've see some changes that way.

He's shifted alliances with

his previous male buddies.

He's now hanging out with

some of the southern males

- a little more.

- Oh, really.

Yeah.

This work out here

is actually some of the first

that's been done in

establishing how long

these animals live in the wild.

We know now, for 15 years,

that you have to be at least 15

to reach that spotted, probably older.

Knowing dolphins as we do,

Denise and I both agreed

that their deaths in tuna

nets, or in other ways

at the hands of humans,

is totally unacceptable.

So far, during this summer of 2000,

the dolphins had shown little

interest in our new computer.

And John and I were discouraged.

Now, we were down to our final day

on the water, just offshore of Bimini.

John prepped the computer

in nearly 20 knots of wind.

Dolphins appeared in the swells.

And we wasted no time

getting into the water.

As this was our last day, I

decided to take no chances.

Knowing the dolphins loved to play,

I bought an underwater

scooter in with me,

a toy they'd never been

able to resist in the past.

But the dolphins' attention quickly

shifted from the scooter,

to the computer.

Finally, they were responding.

But there were so many dolphins

and so much excitement

that it was difficult

to know whether they

were reacting to the calls or just

interested in all the action.

In the midst of this melee,

a bottlenosed dolphin appeared,

drawn in by the excitement.

But the spotted dolphins were

not pleased by his appearance.

They swam aggressively,

signaling one another,

then flinging themselves

against the intruder.

The bottlenose launched

himself repeatedly

through the surface in his

attempt to escape the spotters.

But he was driven off.

And the spotters seemed

to do a little dance

of self-congratulation.

With the bottlenosed

dolphin out of the way,

the spotters' attention

swung back to the computer.

They were incredibly excited, perhaps

wondering at our newfound ability

to communicate a sort of dolphinese.

Finally the pace slowed down enough

that we could hear a back and forth

exchange going on between

the dolphins and the computer.

Exhausted by the continual freediving,

I went for a small scuba tank.

Yeah.

You got it.

Back in the water, I went

for as many identifications

as I could get, shooting short

bursts of film at high speed.

But the juveniles, as always,

thought of it as just a game,

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