A Best Friend

Crowds of people, staring, fascinated, amused by what lies in front of them, but I only see a glimpse of a blue-gray piece of the sky dashing through the water moving at high speed. Its body glistens in the sun; its skin is slippery and wet. It’s shining like light is actually in it. But suddenly it leaves fast, keeping my eyes staring at the empty crystal clear water. But then, I see another one going even faster than the previous flash. I wonder what this is and what is happening? It suddenly comes to me. They are not sky pieces, they are dolphins playing chase!

I started wondering about how dolphins interact with the world when I went to Sea World and saw a dolphin show. They flipped, jumped, gleamed, and shined. It was so amazing and a big surprise to learn that when a dolphin gets into a fight with a shark, the dolphin will usually win!

Dolphins will swim alone. We are going to find out if that is a good idea. Even though dolphins will most of the time win a conflict with a shark, they are always very protective to one another. Imagine you’re a dolphin and decided to lead your own trail and stay by yourself. So, you are swimming alone in the dangers of the sea. That was not a very wise decision, let me just tell you that. So, while swimming, you hear a rustling through the sea grass. Shocked, you stop, spin your tail, and see nothing. For some reason the water seemed to get a bit colder. Whoosh, another rustle and another spin, but this time you turn even faster than the spin before. You see a shark, and just barely survive. I told you it wasn’t a wise decision. You swim away as quickly as you can, and that is the reason dolphins swim in groups. There is a better chance of survival. Now, another dolphin somewhere is a little smarter than you. He lives in a pod with his mom, dad, and other dolphins that are the same species. That same shark comes around to attack them, but they see the shark coming and mothers and babies dart to the middle of their group, while males and females without babies head to the outside to act as a wall of protection. What a perfect system for dolphins that want to survive.

It’s not all about surviving. Dolphins have playful and fun behavior. I think the exact definition for a dolphin is that they love to play with each other. They don’t just play with each other; they play with things like pebbles and seaweed. Dolphins can actually play with prey without killing them, so they can play fish. Well, other than playing with fish, dolphins do other things like chasing each other. Why it’s like tag that kids play in school but instead it’s in the water. Dolphins will practically swim across their whole area of the ocean in about 1 minute. You would be very surprised at how fast they are it’s like they are always racing. Jumping in the air is fun too, and there are many reasons for doing it, like to show off. This is one of the ways you become popular and more known in your pod, but that is not the only reason for jumping. Dolphins also search for food. While up in the air, they look around to find fish and when they are in the air they know which direction they should head for lunch. Also they like to splash their tails and roll as a fun activity to do with their friends and… ENEMIES!

Dolphins give sounds to communicate and give signals. How do they do all this? The sounds are created by blows of air going through one of the paths of their nose, and when the blow is through, out comes the sound of a click or squeak. Each dolphin has its own whistle or call to communicate, and the call identifies one dolphin from another. So when a dolphin is talking to you the receiver will always know who it is.

Everyone thinks humans love, love, love dolphins, but this line does not reflect all the care humans give to dolphins. Even though most humans find dolphins to be amazing, in some areas dolphin population is low. Why? Of course, people are actually killing dolphins, and being very cruel and selfish. People kill dolphins for all sorts of things, like food, fertilizer, and even pet food. Some people are mean, but others are so kind to dolphins, that when humans swim with dolphins the humans should not wave their hands. It is not bad at all to wave your arms a little, just don’t do it very obnoxiously. People usually don’t do this because dolphins will feel as though that person is saying, “Ha, I have arms and you don’t!” That is being mean to the dolphins because they have no arms and will not come to people who seem to be teasing them. Humans are so connected to dolphins because of their gentle friendly character. This has made people love dolphins and dolphins love them back just as much.

This has always been a question people ask, Dolphins are intelligent and smart. How intelligent are they? Because dolphins are very intelligent and playful they can combine those characteristics and create great mimics of human behavior. When dolphins want to, they can do it so easily and so good! When a human raises an arm, dolphins will raise a fin. Humans spin, dolphins turn/roll. Dolphins have a lot of intelligence and a lot of smarts. So are they smarter than humans? Well, in your brain you have folded parts that consist of your memory, thinking, and speech. Dolphins have more of those parts than humans, but humans have more tissue to protect your brain. To make it easy humans are smarter than dolphins, but not by much because the only reason humans are smarter is because whenever a dolphin gets hit in the head they don’t have as much tissue to protect all their smarts, but when the same thing happens to a human they are definitely more protected. Even if dolphins were very secure, they still would not beat the smarts humans have. Another way we can tell that dolphins are intelligent is because when Louis Hermann threw a ball for a dolphin to catch nobody expected the dolphin to get it correctly, but the dolphin did get it correctly! Dolphins love to be fun and one way they do this is by riding on the backs of the waves on a human ship. This is a great opportunity for dolphins to have fun and for humans to get a good picture.

For a very long time people have told stories about dolphins saving lives, and about dolphins rescuing people. This is not a myth, but the real fact. Yet again, you are a dolphin and see something falling with no care at all into the depth of the ocean. This time you come over to it, but very, very slowly and carefully. You don’t know what it is, and as you get closer you see that it is a human drowning! With no thought you pick up the person gently, and then carry them back to the nearest shore. After the person is laid down on the sand you wait and wait in the water except for the occasional check, the gold ball in the sky has almost set when you hear the sound of, “Where am I,” and with a sigh of relief you dash back into the deep waters. Just think, you saved someone’s life by helping them and putting the person on shore. Do you remember that sky piece dashing through the water? Well hopefully he is not a confusion anymore, but fitting back in the sky. Instead of only seeing a glimpse of something blue-gray, now you can call him your beautiful, amazing, enchanting friend in the sea!