Dolphins team up to rescue injured companion by forming a raft

Wow, this is incredibly moving footage folks…people everywhere need to see this!

Everybody's favourite cetacean just got a little more lovable. For the first time, dolphins have been spotted teaming up to try to rescue an injured group member.

12 dolphins were seen swimming very close together. One female was in difficulties: it was wriggling and tipping from side to side, sometimes turning upside-down.

The other dolphins crowded around it, often diving beneath it and supporting it from below. After about 30 minutes, the dolphins formed into an impromptu raft: they swam side by side with the injured female on their backs. By keeping the injured female above water, they may have helped it to breathe, avoiding drowning (see video at link below).

www.newscientist.com...

Maybe it made it to dolphin Heaven...

After another few minutes some of the helper dolphins left. The injured dolphin soon dropped into a vertical position. The remaining helpers appeared to try and prop it up, possibly to keep its head above the surface, but it soon stopped breathing, say the researchers. Five dolphins stayed with it and continued touching its body, until it sank out of sight.

Did that dolphin survive??

reply to post by Murgatroid


Thanks for posting the video.

I didnt know how to since it wasnt on youtube.

reply to post by RooskiZombi


Sadly no,... 5 others stayed with her for a time after she passed.

I wish it would have had a better ending.

It is amazing though,.. the feelings they have for one another.

And they do that to other animals, people included, as have been several cases of people helped by dolphins.

Thank you for this. They are amazing animals. I read recently they might be THE most intelligent.

reply to post by riverwild

we never see how it ended. did he recover and swim away or what?

update: just read the poor little guy didn't make it. gee thanks for the uplifting story about the raft thing

Cases like this are why it infuriates me to see the killing of Dolphins....by choice or by recklessness. Accidents happen and fishing feeds a planet. However, without going there beyond the casual mention, these magnificent creatures are targeted for killing in some cases. Videos like this are stunning and inspirational ... but also should establish sentient life outside our own is very much a part of the world around us and killing them by deliberate action is murder that simply involves swimming, not walking intelligence.

Thanks for the vid! I love these. Someday I KNOW we'll figure the way to communicate with them. They clearly Do communicate with each other so it's a technical problem to solve and time needed to solve it. Some day....and oh what tales some may have to share. Who knows?

Given the interaction that happens on a regular basis betwixt dolphin and human, I can't help but wonder if the dolphins were trying to ask for help from the people taping. It would not be the first time.

Breaks my heart that humans slaughter these poor creatures in the name of sicence. I agree with what another poster said though. I think they were asking for help.

I agree that it looked like the dolphins were asking for help. Isn't funny how we arrogantly deem ourselves the more intelligent species, when dolphins will unselfishly come to the rescue of a human but all we can do is stand there and film them when one their own is dying in front of us.

S & F. Amazing.Off which coast did this take place?

If you haven't already, watch a documentary titled 'The Cove.' I warn that it can be disturbing at times. Actually, scratch that. It's completely FUBAR. The unsettling reality of dolphin hunting..

The Cove - Wiki

The Cove is a 2009 documentary film that analyzes and questions Japan's dolphin hunting culture. It was awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2010. The film is a call to action to halt mass dolphin kills, change Japanese fishing practices, and to inform and educate the public about the risks, and increasing hazard, of mercury poisoning from dolphin meat. The film is told from an ocean conservationist's point of view.[2][3] The film highlights the fact that the number of dolphins killed in the Taiji dolphin drive hunting is several times greater than the number of whales killed in the Antarctic, and claims that 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed in Japan every year by the country's whaling industry. The migrating dolphins are herded into a cove where they are netted and killed by means of spears and knives over the side of small fishing boats. The film argues that dolphin hunting as practiced in Japan is unnecessary and cruel.

And yet it's perfectly legal for humans to do this to them. These animals have a right to be free from gratuitous violence and tyranny.

reply to post by spaceinvaders


It's not legal everywhere. I think that in Portugal is not allowed.

www.anti-dolphin.org...

This is simply a ruse to let our guard down to dolphin's true evilness.

reply to post by spaceinvaders


I challenge the strong minded and brave to watch the full documentary (Earthlings). It will literally alter your perception of nature and it's subjection from human destruction.

Originally posted by roblot
reply to post by spaceinvaders

 

I challenge the strong minded and brave to watch the full documentary (Earthlings). It will literally alter your perception of nature and it's subjection from human destruction.

edit on 16-2-2013 by roblot because: (no reason given)

I couldn't watch all of it, and I'm fairly strong stomached. It broke my heart to see what we do to other creatures. No compassion or respect, just contempt, car body parts are treated better. The absolute terror and pain we put these animals through defies words. I am ashamed, and dismayed. We are civilised? No. We'd rather spend out money on 'designer' trainers than pay the true cost of food, as that would involve paying peole to watch over those who take part in this.

That's interesting, wasn't there a thread a little while ago about a whale pod adopting a dolphin because dolphins shun the diseased, deformed or injured members of their pod.
(Or something like that).