• Question: why do dolphins protect humans like the own kind

    Asked by to Thon, Catherine, James, Natalie, Shaylon on 20 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Shaylon Stolk

      Shaylon Stolk answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      No one really knows. Dolphins are very social and protect other dolphins in their pods. They may recognise that humans are intelligent like them, and treat us as some kind of funny-looking dolphin.

      When another dolphin, is struggling to get to the surface to breathe, the other dolphins will take turns helping push them to the surface to get air. They also do this for baby dolphins that haven’t learned to surface on their own yet. So maybe there’s an element of instinct– they see a swimmer in distress and feel an instinctive need to help. Humans react this way to crying noises by other species– we’ll hear a kitten mewing and want to help because we have an instinctive response to want to help crying babies. So it’s possible dolphins are having a similar reaction to struggling swimmers.

    • Photo: James Bell

      James Bell answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      Even helping animals in your own species is quite a developed thing to do and animals need to have fairly complex social behaviour to do that.

      It is amazing that dolphins will protect humans, I’ve found a couple of stories of dolphins protecting people from sharks. It’s not really clear why they do it (and obviously we can’t ask the dolphins unless someone learns to talk to them) but it might be, as Shaylon says, because dolphins are intelligent enough to realise the similarities between themselves and other dolphin/ whale species and to want to help them out because of the same feelings of empathy that make people look after other species

      http://www.dolphins-world.com/dolphins-rescuing-humans/

      Several years ago, in the Gulf of Akaba, a British tourist was rescued by three dolphins from sharks. Near the Sinai Peninsula, a ship captain had stopped his boat so several passengers could watch dolphins playing. Three of the passengers decided to swim with them, and one stayed a little longer than the others. To his horror, he was bitten by a shark – and more were coming. Suddenly, three dolphins placed themselves between the tourist and the sharks, smacking the water with tails and flippers, and drove the sharks off so the man could be rescued.

      In 2004, a group of swimmers were confronted by a ten-foot great white shark off the northern coast of new Zealand. A pod of dolphins “herded” them together, circling them until the great white fled. There are several other examples from the area of Australia of similar incidences.

    • Photo: Catherine Offord

      Catherine Offord answered on 21 Jun 2014:

      Social behaviour – and particularly putting yourself at risk to protect another animal – is a very interesting part of evolution. We call this selfless behaviour – i.e. helping someone else at a cost to yourself – ‘altruism’, and it’s taken decades and decades to try and explain why and how it happens.

      However, it’s even more difficult to explain when it happens across species! As Shaylon says, it’s not really clear why dolphins do this, although there are many stories about it. Another possibility is that the dolphins may not know they are ‘helping’ as such, but may just be playful and inquisitive around humans, as they are around each other and many other animals. They may help struggling swimmers without ‘intending’ to help exactly….

    • Photo: Anthony Caravaggi

      Anthony Caravaggi answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Shaylon, James, and Catherine have covered this question in excellent detail, so there’s little I can add.

      You might be interested to know that dolphins have been reported to help other cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises). This includes a report of a group of dolphins help herd a pod of porpoises away from the beach where they had been stranded previously.

      Why they do these things is an extremely interesting question, one which we’re not close to answering. Do the dolphins mistake humans and other cetaceans as members of their own pod? This seems unlikely. Are they being genuinely altruistic and helpful despite knowing that we’re not dolphins? Is it instinct (I think that some of it is)? Will we ever know for certain? I think it’s unlikely, but it’s a fascinating question to consider.

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