Young bottlenose dolphin PC throws around a fish, sharpening its vital food-handling skills.
Who hasn't been surprised and delighted by cheerful little chuckles that bubble up without warning? This happens a lot to people who live with animals and during fieldwork as well.
At sea with data and dolphins, you get wondrously personal moments when, unbidden, dolphins do something that triggers a funny thought. In the twilight of a September sunset, I shared just such a spontaneous snicker with husband and boat captain John Heidemann.
A small cadre of bottlenose dolphins meandered northward. Big bulls KK and Edge swam with adult females DD1, Q and Square Bite Tall. Front Slash and her calf Scarface, named for a dark scar across its right cheek, wandered with them. They made a motley group.
They rose and submerged in a sloppy side-by-side parade rank, matching the easy rhythms of calm sunset seas. Their casual misalignment and slow stride revealed their relaxed state.
Slow and steady, they cut across a deep channel to a shallow sand shelf. As they reached the eastern sea wall of the deep channel, they passed over a school of fish. The females continued without pause.
But not the males. KK and Edge dropped back, reversed course, and suddenly sent some fish skyward with powerful slugs of the tail. We couldn't tell if they actually fed on the fish they'd whacked because they lingered momentarily and then raced back to the females.
We both laughed spontaneously, struck by the same image: human teenagers at the mall. Young women stroll through the Food Court without pause, eschewing snacks to stay svelte. Their young male counterparts engulf food at every opportunity. The dolphin bulls were like a couple of gangly guys zipping off to gobble fast food like Charlie Chaplain in A Dog's Life before sprinting back to the girls.
In retrospect, maybe the bulls' behavior wasn't so strange. Many bottlenose dolphins specialize in personalized strategies for getting food. Edge is an expert fish kicker. His shallow water hunts are spectacular. He torpedoes after fish like he was shot out of a cannon, slugs them 10 or 12 feet into the air and overtakes them with awesome athleticism. KK follows close in his footsteps. Maybe they were just practicing tonight.
On the other hand, Edge and KK scoured our summer and early fall waters for date-able females and fish. If male dolphins act like male dogs around females in heat, they may need to grab food whenever they can.
Opportunistic feeding isn't the sole providence of big bulls though. Bottlenose dolphins have what I call an open appetite. It's always on. In their gloomy 24-hour world, they don't know where the next meal is coming from. It makes sense that they'd take advantage of every one. An open appetite is one reason besides their cooperative nature they're so trainable in captivity. They're reliably reinforced (easily shaped) with food. They're willing to eat any time like a pet dog. Contrast this with your cat.
On the other hand, local bottlenose dolphins often appear to ignore schools of fish. Its entirely possible they don't ignore them. But from the surface, they appear to swim over or through fish schools without changing pace. They've likely investigated the fish from afar, echolocating on them well before our fish finder reveals the meal to human observers.
Passing without pause means that bottlenose dolphins aren't mindless eating machines. No animal is. Despite an open appetite, they don't engulf everything. Like people, each dolphin has its preferences.
Animal behaviorists interpret behavior in the conditions under which it occurs (in context). What was behind the bulls' hasty fish flinging? They swam with at least two potentially date-able females. Were they just grabbing a snack? Or was it displacement behavior, an unrelated way to spend excess energy?
Maybe it was "Hey, look at me" behavior, an understandable display. Perhaps it was more complicated: an innocent indication of the genetic benefits of 'mating with me' or an incipient urge to share food with a date? Among their multiple intelligences, dolphins also share food...
Our spontaneous snicker was even more delightful for the puzzle it presented. Get surprised and delighted today: Spend just 5 minutes watching an animal.
Dr. Weaver studies wild dolphins under federal permit GA1088-1815, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Contact her at www.dazzlingdolphins.com.
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