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Some of you may have come across alarming press reports recently (such as one in a local Co.Clare newspaper) which once again raised the spectre of Dusty the dangerous dolphin. The facts behind this story are indeed sufficient to inspire caution, but not the anti-dolphin hysteria which some people would like to create.
As reported previously on this website (see the article Is Dusty dangerous?, Dusty has been known to prod and poke swimmers and to mouth their arms and legs in such a way as to cause concern. On a handful of occasions she has pushed people so forcefully that they have wisely taken the hint and left the water. For the people concerned it has not surprisingly been an upsetting experience thus to be ‘rejected’ by the dolphin. However, they have not suffered any lasting injuries as far as we know, and at least one surprised and shocked victim of Dusty’s occasional unfriendliness later got back in the water and was once again accepted as a playmate. All the cases we have recorded of Dusty hurting people in any way fall into two groups. One we call provoked attacks, where Dusty has turned on someone (up to now it has always been a man) who has been harassing her; chasing her around, trying to grab hold of her or ‘ride her’ when she didn’t want it, or even in one case trying to tie a towel around her tail. With these people we have no sympathy at all! The second group we call unprovoked attacks, where someone has been in the water but not necessarily actively interacting with the dolphin at that point. Suddenly the dolphin has turned and ‘gone for’ the apparently innocent victim (which seems more often than not to have been a woman), who naturally wonders what on earth she did to deserve such treatment. In most or all of these cases, the dolphin has been involved in an interaction with a familiar, favoured and male swimmer, and probably the other swimmers have crowded in too close. We therefore speculate that the dolphin has seen the extra female on the scene as unwanted competition and has responded accordingly. ‘Attacks’ always cease as soon as the victim is out of the water and indeed from this position she may immediately be allowed to stroke and pet the dolphin again – so long as the person doesn’t attempt to come between the dolphin and her ‘man of the moment’. Of course we may just be projecting human emotions and behavioural patterns onto the situation, and certainly not all of the facts fit (why does she pick on one woman and not the other, for example, when there are several in the water?), but this is our best description of the scenario at the moment.
The recent attack on Jacinta Conlon fits the second pattern perfectly. We have spoken to Jacinta and confirmed that she was totally well-disposed towards Dusty, and that on this, her first swim with a wild dolphin, she was basically watching Dusty interacting with a local man whom she (the dolphin) knows well. Probably Jacinta got a little too close, but she did nothing else to provoke an attack, which when it came was violent. Dusty used her beak to ram Jacinta in the chest sufficiently hard to wind her, and as she struggled to get her breath back and to get out of the water, Dusty continued to push her aggressively. Jacinta is not a strong swimmer and says that had she been in deeper water she might not have been able to get out at all. (All ‘attacks’ by Dusty have actually taken place in shallow water close to the shore). Jacinta was in considerable pain by the time she got to hospital in Galway and when X-rayed she was found to have two cracked ribs. As a result she had to spend a week off work (and to present a very unlikely-sounding explanation to her boss!). Cracked ribs should soon heal without any further treatment, but the shock of being attacked in this way by a supposedly ‘friendly’ dolphin will take longer to dissipate, and we cannot blame Jacinta when she says that it’s the last time she will attempt to swim with a wild dolphin. We extend to her our sincere sympathy.
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Despite her injuries Jacinta does not want the dolphin to be ‘punished’, and nor do we. She contacted the authorities without knowing that the issue of public safety was already a hot topic within Clare County Council and that some local council officials and anti-dolphin vigilantes would not hesitate to use her unfortunate accident as ammunition in their campaign to ban swimming with the dolphin and to remove the dolphin from Fanore, if necessary by ‘culling’ her. So to keep the facts in perspective, let us remember the following points:
1. No-one has been permanently injured by Dusty or any other Irish dolphin.
2. Hundreds or maybe thousands of men, women and children have been in the water with her during the last 3 years and have been treated with gentleness and care.
3. It is dolphins which are endangered, not humans; during the time Dusty has been in Co.Clare, hundreds of dolphins have been killed (as in dead, not just injured or shocked) by Irish fishermen in their trawl and gill nets without ever being reported in the local papers. Thousands more have died in other fisheries world-wide, including those deliberately targetted in the Japanese drive fisheries, and who knows how many more have died as a result of pollution or hunting or in captivity.
4. It is humans, not dolphins, who are dangerous. It is we who settle our differences by killing each other and devising ever more horrendous weapons of war to attack other tribes with. You are a lot safer in the water with Dusty than in the back streets of Limerick!
5. Dusty is still a wild animal and the sea is still the sea so you should not go in the water with her unless you can handle it. You have to take responsibility for your own life and your own actions.
What can we learn from Jacinta’s experience and that of other unfortunate recipients of the occasional sharp end of Dusty’s temper? Here are some suggestions if you are nervous but determined to swim anyway:
1. Wear a wetsuit or buoyancy aid.
2. Don’t go in the water alone, and stay with your buddy so you can help each other if necessary.
3. Stay close to the shore.
3. Don’t crowd the dolphin, especially when she is already interacting with someone else.
4. If you are uncomfortable with Dusty’s behaviour or you feel in any way threatened, you should simply leave the water quickly but calmly. Shout for help from other swimmers if you need it!
If you do suffer or witness an ‘attack’ by Dusty, please let us know the details so we can build up a more complete picture of this little-understood phenomenon.
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Date
Posted: 07/07/2003
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