Beneath the Southern Cross, Part Five

The next morning, we woke up early with the specific intent of going to visit the dolphins. Monkey Mia is one of very few places in the world where wild dolphins come up to the shore to be fed. It’s a fascinating story, really. About 50 years ago, a woman began feeding a dolphin off her boat. She did that long enough and consistently enough that she taught the dolphin how to come eat fish from her hand right off the beach. Within a few years, tourists came and swam with that dolphin and the others who had heard the news and had come to join in. After a short while, as you might imagine, the people started mistreating the dolphins, feeding them all sorts of crap, distracting them from getting their own food in the ocean, handling them too much, etc. The dolphins were too friendly with humans and they were endangering their own lives. A group of biologists/conservationists took over the care of these dolphins about 10 years ago by coming up with a protocol of feeding. This is how it works: Every morning, 365 days a year, the dolphins are offered 3 feedings between 8am and noon. It is up to them whether and when they come for those feedings. When they first show up near the beach in the morning, a wildlife expert or 2 or 3 will stand knee-deep in the water as 2-5 dolphin swim at their ankles. The rangers talk to the crowd of tourists who are about ankle deep in the water and tell them all about the dolphins. They’ll talk and answer questions for about 20-30 minutes while the dolphins just hang out and schmooze with the crowd, swimming up and down the length of the crowd along the edge of the ocean. After the rangers have talked all about them and their history, they bring down buckets of food with the names of each of the 5 dolphins on them.

They only feed 5 and those five are females who are 10 years or older. The five they feed are Nikki, Puck and her daughter Piccolo, Surprise and her daughter Shock. They’ve been feeding Nikki and Puck and Surprise since they were 10 years old and before that, they fed their moms. The rangers pick one person from the crowd at a time to come take the fish and hold it under the water for the dolphin to come take. Jordan was picked twice to do this as we witnessed 4 feedings over 2 days. After the fish are gone, the dolphins usually swim away and come back, or not, for another 2 feedings later in the morning. The rangers only feed them a small snack to allow the dolphins continue to get the bulk of their food on their own. Sometimes the dolphins come back later in the day just to see people but they don’t get fed.

They don’t seem to come just for the food. The dolphins really seem to enjoy the human interaction as much as the humans. It is amazing to watch. The dolphins will swim slowly by the crowd on their side so their eye is up out of the water so they can see everyone. They have distinct personalities that the rangers refer to as they talk about each of the dozens of dolphins that hang out in Monkey Mia who all have names and birthdates. They say that the mama dolphins tend to bring their new babies to the shore to show them off to the rangers the day they give birth. They don’t feed babies who are still nursing (which some can do for up to 6-8 years, my goodness) because they want to make sure they are fully capable of taking care of themselves in the wild. They don’t feed males because, apparently, male dolphins are not good guys. They are aggressive and sort of one-track minded. They are focused on teaming up with a few other males, corralling a female when she is in season and kidnapping her. They take her out to sea for a few weeks and won’t let her get away. Then they all mate with her and then let her go. Usually, 12 months after a female dolphin disappears from the beach at Monkey Mia for a few weeks, she’ll have a baby. One of the rangers said if you were thinking about coming back in your next life as a dolphin, don’t come back as a female. They have a rough life. Kidnap, rape, up to 8 years of nursing if their baby isn’t killed by a shark which 50% of them are, and they never go through menopause so they can be impregnated even when they are old and over it.

That sort of dented my dolphin-worshipping bubble. But the way these rangers care for these
amazingly smart and gorgeous mammals is very inspiring. They are a model program and other parts of the world are working to emulate something similar. The goal is to allow masses of people to have up-close interactions with dolphins so that the animals get into the hearts of people who will do what they can to protect them from maltreatment without disturbing the natural habits of the animals.