I have loved this photo for a while now, captioned, reposted it, I adore dolphins and whales and have written about both quite a bit here. I believe that they need protection, from us. There are still a multitude of dangers to these amazing creatures, from dolphins slaughters to whaling.
But today I wanted to share something positive, you see, the dolphin getting a lift from a whale isn't so far fetched, its happened before and I came across a piece from earlier in the year at Treehugger that explains how it's more common than you think.
Many species interact in the wild, most often as predator and prey. But recent encounters between humpback whales and bottlenose dolphins reveal a playful side to interspecies interaction. In two different locations in Hawaii, scientists watched as dolphins "rode" the heads of whales: the whales lifted the dolphins out of the water, and then the dolphins slid back in. The two species seemed to cooperate in the activity, and neither displayed signs of aggression or distress. Whales and dolphins in Hawaiian waters often interact, but playful social activity such as this is extremely rare between species. These are the first recorded examples of this type of behavior.
Treehugger
Here is another example a couple of years before, also in Hawaii.
And yet, there is bad news for whales and dolphins all around the world, no matter how much we want there to only be the positive, happy news. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has put a halt to seismic testing off the gulf coast due to a massive number of dolphins bodies winding up on the shores.
Marc Lawrence, Global Geophysical's vice president in the Gulf region, said the seismic surveys do not pose a danger to marine mammals.
"We see no hazard to them whatsoever," Lawrence said. As proof, he said dolphins routinely ride along with ships when they are conducting surveys.
He said the restriction covers an area that ranges out to about 20 miles off the Louisiana coast. He called BOEM's restriction unprecedented. His company is searching for overlooked reservoirs in areas along the central Louisiana coast: Grand Isle, Timbalier island, the West Delta and south Pelto.
This is the same area where government scientists say they have found sick and dead dolphins.
Source
How many sick and dead dolphins?
Over the same period of time, NOAA says 714 dolphins and whales have been found stranded from the Florida Panhandle to the Texas state line, with 95 percent of those mammals found dead. Normally, the region sees 74 reported dolphin deaths a year.
And is finally
NOAA listing Gulf dolphin death information on website
And it's not just here in America where it's an issue.
A
long just one stretch of coastline in Peru, more than 3,000 dead dolphins have washed ashore in just the last 3 months, and the disturbing trend may only be escalating. With the latest discovery of 481 lifeless dolphins there in recent days, residents have begun to demand an explanation for the mysterious mass deaths -- and as far as enlisted experts can tell, offshore oil exploration in the region is the most likely culprit.
...
Yaipen believes that a controversial technique for detecting oil beneath the seabed, using sonar or acoustic sensing, is leading the death of marine life en masse.
"The oil companies use different frequencies of acoustic waves and the effects produced by these bubbles are not plainly visible, but they generate effects later in the animals. That can cause death by acoustic impact, not only in dolphins, but also in marine seals and whales."
Treehugger
So, it's not just drill baby, drill. We affect not just the environment with our exploration for oil, we affect the living things around us, not only on land, but in the oceans. When are we going to learn that we're not just killing our planet, but the living things on it?
Drill baby, drill. How about kill baby, kill.