
Dolphins at popular spot miss tourists and keep leaving 'gifts' on shore - SirLJ
https://7news.com.au/news/wildlife/dolphins-bring-gifts-from-sea-in-apparent-response-to-lack-of-human-interaction-c-1049565
======
shitloadofbooks
I swam with the dolphins at this location 20 years ago when I was a dolphin
obsessed 10 year old.

There were about 12 of us there on a brisk autumn morning and there was a pod
of about 6 dolphins, including a calf. The locals told us we probably wouldn't
get much interaction as the dolphins were shy because of the calf. I swam out
and within 10 minutes, the calf was absolutely enamoured with me. It swam up
and played a form of "tag" and let me pat it, however it wouldn't go near any
of the adults. Eventually the whole pod came to swim with me.

It was an absolutely incredible experience and 10 year old me felt like a
dolphin whisperer.

Side note: My parents managed/ran the town swimming pool and so I was I very
confident swimmer after spending all my spare time at the pool.

~~~
RichardCA
Have you seen this?

[https://youtu.be/Bsp_JTtE3-w](https://youtu.be/Bsp_JTtE3-w)

~~~
ukoki
I can't imagine being that smart and curious and being trapped in a tiny pool
my whole life

------
keenmaster
Dolphins probably have a multi-tiered approach to dealing with humans. When
they can get free food without trying, they don’t bother performing high cost
activities. When humans stubbornly refuse to give food, they escalate “pro-
social” behavior. When humans don’t show up, they resort to the highest cost
way of attracting them.

I don’t believe they actually miss the tourists themselves. Tourists are
merely delivery vehicles for food. People are probably projecting their
fantasies about animals being fundamentally better than humans.

~~~
strogonoff
The same logic can be applied to humans.

“I don’t believe parents actually love their children and vice-versa. Parents
are merely delivery vehicles of food for children. Children are delivery
vehicles of future care for parents. Humans are probably projecting their
fantasies about themselves being fundamentally better than they are in
reality.”

We don’t directly perceive that dolphins project _their_ fantasies about
humans, but like with our fellow humans, it doesn’t mean they aren’t doing
that.

~~~
pmiller2
I was going to downvote out of disagreement, but, on second thought, this
makes good sense. We probably wouldn't hesitate to say "I don't believe
$NONHUMAN_ANIMAL parents love their children, and vice-versa...." about most
animals. There might be hesitation when it comes to apes, monkeys, and maybe
dogs, but I can imagine people would say it about, say, hyenas, and it would
seem plausible.

~~~
Sharlin
It's easy to anthropomorphize animals, but it's also easy to go overboard in
the other direction. In general, as our understanding of animal cognition has
increased, we have moved away from human exceptionalism, finding that traits
once thought to be unique to humans are anything but. Certainly we've come far
from the Cartesian viewpoint of non-human animals as mindless automata.

"Love" in particular, of course, is both a highly loaded and acutely ill-
defined concept, so "can a <non-human animal> feel love" is probably a wrong
question [1].

By the way, it's rather appropriate that you mentioned hyenas given how
misunderstood they are by laypeople, in no small part due to their
presentation in a certain Disney film.

[1] [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XzrqkhfwtiSDgKoAF/wrong-
ques...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XzrqkhfwtiSDgKoAF/wrong-questions)

~~~
pmiller2
Yeah, I agree. It's a difficult enough philosophical problem to understand the
mental states of even another human, much less an animal with a completely
different brain structure. There has been some work purring dogs in fMRI
machines that shows that their brains respond to humans in ways that indicate
they like us, but that's pretty far from conclusive. After all, I know my dog
likes dinner, so she'd probably display activity in the pleasure center when
presented with a bowl of her food. In any case, what matters is that I love
her, and she is doing nothing to disabuse me of the notion. ;)

Oh, and, yes, I did choose hyenas specifically because they're a misunderstood
species. Glad you picked up on that.

~~~
pmiller2
Ugh. s/purring/putting/g

------
kilroy123
After all the strict lock-downs every weekend, here in Istanbul. There are a
ton of dolphins swimming in the Bosphorus straight. I've been told by locals
there are normally not so many around.

I sit on the balcony each weekend and see dolphins swimming about every single
day. Sometimes they're very close to land.

My theory is, they're around, due to drastically less boat traffic. Either
way, they sure seem happy humans aren't around.

~~~
dmix
That must be a nice view. Do you see a lot of warships or other interesting
stuff crossing the straight?

~~~
kilroy123
Oh yeah, I see all kinds of random industrial ships go by. I've only seen one
small warship. I haven't been here long, I just sort of got stuck here in
Istanbul and I'm waiting out the pandemic.

------
newman8r
I kayak in the ocean and have been seeing more whales and dolphins near shore
than usual. My layman's theory is that it's due to fewer whale watching boats
bothering them - I can hear those boats from miles away.

~~~
rapnie
Also could be that the underwater sounds we humans create, is probably way
less than it used to be.

------
NetBeck
What if they are wondering where humans went and are experimenting with luring
humans toward the water? Not something out of necessity, but curiosity.

------
mrfusion
I’ve never been able to find it there’s been much research in communicating
with dolphins. Especially with all of the latest machine learning and
translation research. It would be so cool if they could open source a data set
of dolphins recordings with context. (Maybe sound and video)

Does anyone have the sea world connections to make that happen?

~~~
cetalingua
It is not easy, we have not yet cracked the code, plus will they even have the
motivation or any interest to communicate with us?

What we do know is that they produce a variety of signals, some very complex
and their communication is super fast, which is another obstacle for possible
"communication". For example, we cannot generate a burst pulse with our
current technology, we can only record theirs and play it back.

But many research groups are trying. We are starting Dolphin Chat citizen
science project on Zooniverse in a month or so, to classify and prepare a
large dataset of bottlenose dolphins' vocalizations for out deep learning
model. You can check it out and even participate, it will definitely help to
appreciate how complex their vocal repertoire is (and how "chatty" they are).

~~~
andi999
What do you actually mean by 'we cannot generate a burst pulse with our
current technology'? What is the obstacle?

~~~
cetalingua
The obstacle is that we still do not fully understand nor are able to
replicate their sonar, even the Navy that has been studying dolphins for
decades still cannot duplicate biosonar (read more here:
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2019/5/140328-navy-d...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2019/5/140328-navy-
dolphin-sea-lion-combat-ocean-animal-science/))

The burst pulse is extremely complex, some can have 400 single clicks in one
pulse (our ear cannot even hear these single pulses, they merge and for our
human ear it sounds like a creaky door), and the pulse duration is like a few
seconds. Each click is broadband (can go up to 100 kHz and beyond), it is
frequency modulated with varied peak frequencies, center frequencies, RMS,
some clicks can have 2 peaks, etc. It is super fast and super complex, we we
cannot just generate one, only dolphin's sound producing mechanism can.

------
RandyRanderson
"Sorry about the Covi and thanks for all the fish?"

~~~
redtexture
Zoos animals are vulnerable to corona virus.

And their budgets require visitors. Worldwide all zoos are in a state of
crisis.

Now wondering about these sea mammals too.

Bronx Zoo Tiger Is Sick With the Coronavirus - The New York Times
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/nyregion/bronx-zoo-
tiger-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/nyregion/bronx-zoo-tiger-
coronavirus.html)

Zoo May Feed Animals to Animals as Funds Dry Up in Pandemic
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/world/europe/germany-
zoo-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/world/europe/germany-zoo-
coronavirus.html)

------
naringas
so... they are bringing offerings presumably hoping this will make their free
meals return...

so curious reminds me of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propitiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propitiation)

~~~
neonate
Reminded me of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult).

------
idoby
Serves them right, not so much "so long and thanks for all the fish" now, huh?

------
motohagiography
How is it that nobody thinks they've just learned to use bait?

~~~
h2odragon
There's no reports of people being lured into the oceans by dolphins with
sinister purposes ... which means that its not happening, or that no one is
escaping to tell the tale.

~~~
motohagiography
I can only assume you mean sinister porpoises.

------
jlj
There is some evidence of whales displaying gratitude and understanding of a
human's intentions to help them. Very moving and interesting podcast here:

[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91701...](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91701-animal-
minds)

------
ralusek
I wonder if whatever the last item they bring before the beach opens back up
is going to be strongly associated with the return of humans.

"Wow, it was that boot that did it, huh?"

Years later we find a crate of boots stashed away in some sea cave labelled
"for when the food stops."

------
arkanciscan
Scare quotes belong around 'miss' not 'gifts'.

------
11235813213455
Most wild life don't miss humans presence though, vegetable and insects, birds
really got back last weeks, hope it'll last.

Marvellous fruit in the wild too: figs, medlars (I've fed myself almost
exclusively with those last days!), thanks to insects and low air pollution

------
andrewstuart
I went to Tin Can Bay three months ago and fed the dolphins there. There's a
tiny little cafe that manages the process and hundreds of people turn up every
morning. Presumably the operation makes good money.

------
ddrt
Based on the assortment of items I’m impressed they are able to find things
that are potentially useful or unique and interesting. Makes me fear for our
future when they rise up and take over.

~~~
russdill
Honestly it'd probably be an improvement.

------
smt88
A few paragraphs down:

> _" Barry McGovern, an expert in dolphin behaviour, said it was possible the
> dolphins were giving gifts because they missed humans, but unlikely."_

------
noident
I’ve been searchin’

For the dolphins in the sea

And sometimes I wonder

Do you ever think of me

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8g_j5y2OK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8g_j5y2OK4)

------
dreamcompiler
Sign on beach: "Guys, the stores will reopen sooner if you will just wear
masks over your blowholes."

------
netdur
could be this how religions started?

~~~
chime
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult)

------
louis8799
This is the cutest thing I have heard recently.

------
trhway
reminds of dogs bringing the toys, balls, etc. to suggest and initiate play.

------
kevinguay
Seems to be all backwards. The dolphins can't imagine what happened to us:

"So long and thanks for all the gifts"

------
klyrs
What an annoying site. I feel like this should get tagged [popover autoplay
video].

Or maybe, here's a link without that:

[https://digg.com/2020/dolphins-leaving-gifts](https://digg.com/2020/dolphins-
leaving-gifts)

~~~
dang
Ok, we've changed the URL from [https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-
room/news/498781-car...](https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-
room/news/498781-caretakers-say-dolphins-at-popular-spot-miss-tourists-and-
keep) to what appears to be the original source and appears not to autoplay a
video.

------
kjgkjhfkjf
“In all likelihood, they probably don’t miss humans per se," [a dolphin
expert] added. "They probably miss a free meal and the routine."

This describes my feelings about not being able to go to work exactly.

~~~
rglover
I'm cracking up reading this and hearing it with the monotone voice of the guy
in the video.

~~~
dang
We changed the URL but you can find the video via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23261711](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23261711).

