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Chris Schluep
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Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins by Susan Casey
Susan Casey'sVoices in the Oceanwas one of our picks for the Best Books of August. Here is an exclusive essay by the author:
As far back as I can remember, I've felt more at home in the ocean than I do on land, and in this saltwater immersion I've met amazing aquatic creatures: majestic humpback whales, great white sharks like underwater Hindenburgs, manta rays the size of spinnakers, surly tiger sharks and shy reef sharks, Buddha-faced pufferfish and gentle-hearted sea turtles, feisty monk seals and short-tempered sea lions, jellyfish undulating like lava lamps. It had long seemed strange to me, then, that I'd spent so much time in the ocean without ever encountering dolphins. That changed in July 2010, and with this meeting came effects that rippled out, wave-like, to every corner of my life.
The author at work
On the evening I met the dolphins, I was swimming off the western tip of Maui, under stormy gray skies that hadn't enticed anyone else. I was alone, in the full sense of the word. At the time I was grappling with a grief deeper than I could handle, after losing my father to a sudden, fatal heart attack. The ocean was my solace, but even it wasn't working so well. A half-mile offshore, in an area known for its sharkiness, I was surrounded instead by a pod of spinner dolphins. Spinners are known for their shyness, but these dolphins stayed close by me, circling, swimming at my side, examining me with frank curiosity. Their presence was magical, and when they left, I swam back to shore reluctantly. After this encounter, I felt something shift; my grief, while not gone, was displaced by something akin to peace. Voices in the Ocean is the story of my journey to answer the confounding question I was left with: Why had a mere ten minutes in the dolphins' presence been such a soul-shaking experience?
Consider just a handful of astonishing facts about them:
Dolphin brains are far bigger than human brains
And they've had their big brains for 35 million years, about 34.8 million years longer than we have. During this extended fine-tuning, dolphins' brains developed many intriguing features, all of which demonstrate a complex intelligence that evolved in a completely different way than our own. Dolphin brains have unique wiring that hints at a different way of seeing their world, a more complex sense of self, a deeply nuanced social life, and perceptual abilities we are only beginning to understand.
Dolphins have distinct and stable personalities
In any group of dolphins you'll find wily hunters, burly bouncers, conscientious babysitters, sage elders"”a rainbow of personalities. Some dolphins are the life of the party, others are shy, others are pranksters, and they maintain these characteristics over time: science has shown that dolphins are as individual as we are. They're also extremely social animals who live within families, societies, and cultures in which some individuals take on dominant roles and others adopt more submissive ones. Like us, they form tight bonds, and these connections depend on their dispositions. To prove this, scientists studying bottlenose dolphins devised a kind of finned Myers-Briggs test that they use to profile a dolphin's personality. Their conclusion? That dolphins are prone to the same quirks, idiosyncrasies, and wide range of moods that we are. (And contrary to popular opinion, dolphins aren't angels"”they are actually far more interesting than that. Their range of less-than-cuddly behaviors rivals our own.)
Dolphins understand complex sentences and abstract notions
One famous series of dolphin experiments, conducted by psychologist Louis Herman, showed just how smart these animals can be. From 1970 to 2004, he worked with bottlenose dolphins, teaching them a gestural sign language and another language based on sounds, and then testing how well they grasped various concepts"”including many abstract notions that animals are supposedly unable to comprehend. Herman's bottlenoses responded to complicated sentences and knew exactly how the word order, or syntax, changed their meanings. They got instantly that a command like "take the surfboard to the Frisbee" was different from "take the Frisbee to the surfboard," and they adjusted their movements accordingly. When the dolphins were asked to do something impossible, like bring the tank window to their surfboard, they wouldn't attempt any action. They just stared at their trainers, as if to say, "Come on. You and I both know that can't be done." The dolphins also understood the concepts of presence and absence. They discerned the ideas of "same" and "different" and "less" or "more." Using their flippers to press paddles that indicated yes or no, they reported whether they were "sure" or "unsure" of answers to difficult questions. When asked to create new behaviors"”tricks they'd never done before"”they immediately began to innovate, in perfect unison.
Dolphins heal easily from even life-threatening wounds
Scientists have marveled at dolphins' healing abilities"”including infection-resistant, pain-free, hemorrhage-proof rebounds from even the deepest wounds"”which they liken more to regeneration than repair. They believe that dolphins may produce tissue-rebuilding stem cells, antibiotics, antimicrobials, and even a natural, non-addictive morphine, inside their own bodies. In dolphins, even a wound the size of basketball will heal quickly, with no scarring or disfigurement.
Aside from humans, dolphins are the only animals who call themselves by name
Recently, scientists have learned that dolphin calves adopt a signature whistle, akin to a name"”and each dolphin keeps this name throughout his life, using it to identify himself to other dolphins. (A dolphin will also call to other dolphins by whistling their names.) Jason Bruck, a scientist at the University of Chicago, also proved that dolphins have long-term social memories similar to ours: they recognize the signature whistles of their friends even after twenty years of separation, and behave with obvious excitement when they hear them. Given Bruck's findings, it isn't much of a leap to infer that separating a dolphin from his loved ones is as heartbreaking for him as it would be for us.
-- Susan Casey
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Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins
Susan Casey
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