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The dolphins bunched the four swimmers together by circling about 4-8 centimetres from them, and slapping the water with their tails for about 40 minutes.

Howes said he drifted away from the main group when an opening occurred. One large dolphin became agitated and submerged toward Howes, who turned to see where it would surface.

That, he says, is when he saw a great white shark about two metres away in the beach's crystal clear waters.

"The form came and travelled in an arc around me. I knew instinctively what it was," he said.

When the shark started moving toward the women, including his 15-year-old daughter, the dolphins "went into hyperdrive," said Howes.

"I would suggest they were creating a confusion screen around the girls. It was just a mass of fins, backs and ... human heads."

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I am so glad that the dolphins are our friends even after we used one of them to make that great tv show:

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Originally posted by RealityBites:
Dolphins murder millions of fish themselves, just like we do. They're just perpetuating mammalian bigotry against fish!

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I remember seeing one about a lioness they named ...can't remember... Naomi, for conversation sake. Naomi's three cubs were killed in their sleep by an African cobra snake and nailed Naomi, too. The big cat was in pain for a couple of nights in a row and frothing at the mouth with thirst. She was on her last legs as Hyenas kept checking on her for an easy kill. At one point, Naomi's rear legs were paralyzed from the poison, but she'd feign a roar and bravado when the Hyenas came calling. She had to take a couple of swipes at the lead Hyena sizing her up for dinner.

Naomi survived the cobra bite and rejoined the pride. They were "treed" one night by another clan of Hyenas. Naomi, with re-newed health and memories of the Hyenas tearing her cubs limb from limb as she lay helpless, defended the pride ferociously against the night predators.

[ 24 November 2004: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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...Lifeguard Rob Howes said he and three female lifeguards were on a training swim about 100 metres off Ocean Beach near Whangarei on the North Island.

About halfway through the swim, a pod of dolphins "came steaming at us" and started circling, startling the swimmers, he said.

Howes said he was unnerved by speed of the approach, thinking perhaps it was a group of aggressive males or dolphins protecting their baby.

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Of course a dolphin in the water is swimming a lot faster than any human could, so "steaming at us" would describe their normal speed. However, it sets the scene nicely, which is what it was supposed to do.

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The dolphins bunched the four swimmers together by circling about 4-8 centimetres from them, and slapping the water with their tails for about 40 minutes.

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Centimeters??? or is that Metres? Seems an unlikely error to make. And this slapping the water with their tails for 40 minutes...by that time the human swimmers were getting a bit tired of the game I bet.

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Howes said he drifted away from the main group when an opening occurred. One large dolphin became agitated and submerged toward Howes, who turned to see where it would surface.

That, he says, is when he saw a great white shark about two metres away in the beach's crystal clear waters.

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Two metres is just over 6 feet, and he didn't notice this thing 6 feet away for 40 minutes while the dolphins were thrashing around???

The average Great White would be about 15 ft. long (that's about 4.5 meters, or twice the distance it was reported to be away from the swimmer), and weighs in at around 2 tons.

Seems a strange thing to miss for 40 minutes.

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"The form came and travelled in an arc around me. I knew instinctively what it was," he said.

When the shark started moving toward the women, including his 15-year-old daughter, the dolphins "went into hyperdrive," said Howes.

"I would suggest they were creating a confusion screen around the girls. It was just a mass of fins, backs and ... human heads."

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Let's see, a two ton shark, 15 feet long, is swimming 6 ft away from you, and you "know instinctively what it was". Marvelous powers of observation!!!

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The shark left as a rescue boat neared, but the dolphins remained close by as the group swam back to shore. At no point did the shark break the surface of the water, remaining near the bottom, he said.

Howes said he didn't tell the rest of the group about the shark until the next day.

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Ok, the shark, undeterred for 40 minutes by a group of hyperaggressive dolphins, turns tail and runs when the rescue boat appears...chicken of the sea, apparently.

Oh yes, and this 15 ft. long, 2 ton object, which had been swimming 6 ft. away was unnoticed by the other humans.

Of course, they were woman, and were likely concentrating on what they were going to make for supper (fish sticks and spuds?).

Meanwhile, the humans, who have been dogpaddling around in this group of dolpins for 40 minutes, decide to forego the rescue boat and swim for shore themselves. Plucky lot.

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"I came out of that water and I was stunned. I had no idea how to relay what had happened and how to deal with it," said Howes.

While this all happened on Oct. 30, the swimmers didn't tell their story until recently.

He says he spent the next few weeks talking with dolphin experts about the incident, who told him it wasn't unusual for dolphins to protect swimmers.

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Took a while to think this up did it? And the dolphin experts, who were they? Apparently they weren't above a little romance themselves.

Actual cases of dolphins "protecting swimmers" are pretty thin on the ground. Here's a study done on dolphins swimming with humans:

http://tinyurl.com/6h8g7

Takes a bit of the romance out of it.

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There've been a number of great white sightings in the area at this time of year, mainly because they come into the harbours to give birth, said Howes.

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So, whose idea was it to go for a long distance swim through shark infested waters, anyhow.

If that guy was my instructor, I'd sue.

[ 25 November 2004: Message edited by: fuslim ]

[ 25 November 2004: Message edited by: fuslim ]

[ 25 November 2004: Message edited by: fuslim ]

Or, as the French flying fish said after a meal, "c'est fini."

The fishy game show...Name That Tuna

Anyone who's interested in animal behaviour should read: "When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals."

It's eye-opening. One of the things I learned from it is that elephants have a glad/hole halfway between their ears and their eyes, on the sides of their heads. When they are emotionally stressed or excited, the glands/hole gush a fluid that is similar to... tears? I think.

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Originally posted by fuslim:
Please somebody stop me!!!!!

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Somebody above made a remark that I agree with: Nature is NOT ALWAYS red in tooth and claw. That is nature-show porn, the NG stuff, etc. Yes, there is a food chain, and it is hard for us to watch (or is it? if it were, why would watching it have become such a source of funds for commerce?).

We humans also are bloodthirsty, except in twisted ways that no animal has ever matched, since they don't reflect on what they do and can't turn it into Abu Ghraib.

And they, like us, have more to them than the bloodthirsty parts. Their intelligence is much more direct than ours, more trustworthy in the sense that they always mean what they mean, and the better we get to know them, the better we understand what they mean.

The gorgeous beasts. I love 'em. Even the bleeding sharks.

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Maybe I'll stop you tomorrow. Not tonight, I have a haddock.

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...the 200-mile coastal limit to be precise.

Can't say as I blame them, though. It's unfortunate that the dolphins aren't protecting the sharks from those boats that cut their fins off and then throw the still-living, finless carcass back into the sea to sink and drown.

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Originally posted by oldgoat:
Ah well, you can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish.

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I remember some comedian commenting on the fact that Americans say "tuna fish" while Canadians say "tuna."

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On a more serious not, I read that back in the late 50s, early 60s research on dolphins by the US navy and other scientific institutions revealed that they had amazing capacity for communication and that there were other forms of communication that we couldn't detect.

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Dolphins lie.

That's apparently what some researchers/trainers found out when training dolphins to retrieve submerged ordnance and other military hardware. The dolphins were to swim down and attach magnets with cables to the metal objects and then use a signal to tell the humans topside that it was time to haul up the loot. Apparently, when the dolphins were bored of the exercise, or just in a silly mood, they would go through the motions of attaching the cable, then solemnly signal that they had, when they hadn't.

Apparently Koko the gorilla has a capacity for lying as well, typically when asked about missing soda or cookies and such.