Dolphins saving humans

Release date: 28-01-2006
Source: http://www.eurocbc.org/

Dolphins saved us from shark, lifeguards say
By Ainsley Thomson
The New Zealand Herald
23rd November 2004
Veteran lifeguard Rob Howes says the dolphins protected his group from the great white shark. Picture / John Stone
A pod of dolphins is being credited with saving a group of lifeguards from a circling great white shark.
Lifeguard Rob Howes, his daughter Niccy, 15, Karina Cooper, 15, and Helen Slade, 16, were swimming 100m out to sea at Ocean Beach, near Whangarei, when seven bottlenose dolphins sped towards them and herded them together.
"They were behaving really weird," Mr Howes said, "turning tight circles on us, and slapping the water with their tails."
Mr Howes and Helen Slade had drifted about 20m away from the others when a dolphin swam straight at them and dived a few metres in front of them.
"I turned in the water to see where it was going to come up, but instead I saw this great big grey fish swim around me," said Mr Howes.
The veteran lifeguard said it was undoubtedly a 3m-long great white shark.
"It glided around in an arc and headed for the other two girls. My heart went into my mouth, because one of them was my daughter. The dolphins were going ballistic."
The 47-year-old said the dolphins herded the swimmers - who are all members of the Whangarei Heads Surf Lifesaving Club - back together and circled protectively around them for another 40 minutes, fending off the shark.
"I swim with dolphins perhaps three or four times a year here at this beach and I have never in six years seen them behave like that."
Mr Howes decided not to tell the three girls a shark was sharing the water with them.
Lifeguard Matt Fleet was patrolling out from the surf beach in a rescue boat and saw the dolphins' unusual behaviour.
He dived out of the boat to join the group and also saw the great white.
Mr Fleet said the water was clear and he had a good view.
The encounter occurred on October 30, but Mr Howes has spoken publicly about it only this week.
"I sat on it for three weeks, purely because I did not know quite how to handle it.
The only reason he went public was "I didn't want anyone to get chomped [by the shark], so I couldn't be accused of not having made people aware there was a shark out there".
Dr Rochelle Constantine, from the Auckland University School of Biological Science, said it was a rare event, but she had heard of similar things happening overseas.
She said sharks were not normally a threat to New Zealand's bottlenose dolphins, but the dolphins would attack them if they felt at risk.
"From my understanding of the behaviour of these dolphins they certainly were acting in a way which indicated the shark posed a threat to something. Dolphins are known for helping helpless things. It is an altruistic response and bottlenose dolphins in particular are known for it."
Ingrid Visser, who has studied marine mammals for 14 years, said there had been reports from around the world of dolphins protecting swimmers.
"[The dolphins] could have sensed the danger to the swimmers and taken action to protect them."

More info:
> http://www.eurocbc.org/

Poachers kill 'dolphins that saved swimmers' [article added :: 29-01-2006]

Release date: 28-01-2006
Source: The Scotsman

Sat 27 Nov 2004
Survivors of the shark threat incident fear the dead dolphins may have belonged to the pod that saved them.

Poachers kill 'dolphins that saved swimmers'

ALEX MITA
POACHERS in New Zealand may have killed two members of a pod of dolphins that recently saved the lives of swimmers from a great white shark attack, lifeguards said yesterday.
The mutilated carcasses of the two bottlenose dolphins were found on Wednesday in the Awaroa River, which branches off the upper reaches of Whangarei Harbour on North Island’s east coast.

Staff from New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) believe the dolphins died about two weeks ago after drowning in fishing nets set out by criminals poaching fish. DOC officer Richard Parrish said their tails had been hacked off, probably to free them from the net.
Three weeks ago, seven dolphins protected Ocean Beach lifeguard Rob Howes, 45, his 15-year-old daughter Nicky, 16-year-old lifeguard trainee Helen Slade, and Karina Cooper, 15, from the jaws of a great white shark at Ocean Beach, Whangarei Heads.
The protective dolphins have been hailed as the humans’ saviours after the incident was reported this week.
Mr Howes was on a training swim with the teenagers to mark Helen's first day as a lifeguard.
The group was 100 metres from the beach when around seven agitated dolphins appeared. The pod formed a protective shield around the swimmers and even herded Mr Howes back when he tried to swim away.
The girls thought the dolphins were playing as they swam round them in tight circles, thrashing their tails, but Mr Howes finally spotted the outline of a 10ft great white. The dolphins warded off the shark for 45 minutes and only when it moved off did they allow the swimmers to head for the shore.
The discovery of the dead dolphins has outraged the local community and shocked Mr Howes and Miss Slade, who feared the two mammals may have been a part of the pod that saved them.
An angry Mr Howes said whoever mutilated the dolphins should be castrated.
"In light of what has happened at Ocean Beach I would give them a taste of their own medicine," he said. "This is how we repay them for their help?"
He said setting illegal nets where dolphins could get tangled up in them amounted to "indiscriminate murder," and added that the discovery would put a lot of fishermen under pressure.
"There will be a public outcry against the use of nets," he said.
Miss Slade said she was disgusted to hear what had happened to the dolphins.
"Why would they do such a thing?" she asked.
Fishing with illegal nets, failing to report finding a dolphin in a net, and mutilating a marine mammal are all offences carrying a maximum 10,000 New Zealand dollars fine.
Bay Of Islands SPCA inspector Jim Boyd said fishermen needed to change their habits and not set nets where dolphins could be caught.
"(Dolphins) drown in the nets because they cannot get to the surface for air," he said.
Mr Boyd called on the Government to impose legislation to protect the dolphins.
"If (illegal netting) doesn't stop then dolphins will become extinct," he said.
"That would be a sad indictment on society that we cannot look after a creature as special as this."

More info:
> The Scotsman

Save whales in your supermarket important! [article added :: 27-01-2006]

Release date: 27-01-2006
Source: Greenpeace

Save whales in your supermarket
After a month hampering the whale hunt, Greenpeace is leaving the Southern Ocean to take the battle from the high seas to supermarket shelves. Sealord, a company that supplies fish products to Australian supermarkets and restaurants, is linked to Japan's whaling through its parent company Nissui.
ASK: Sealord's boss to persuade Nissui to end the whale hunt
This February meet our Southern Ocean expedition leader Shane Rattenbury as he tours Australia's east coast to present what happened during the Japanese whale hunt. To find out more and register your interest email: events@au.greenpeace.org

More info:
> events@au.greenpeace.org

In the Name of Science? A Review of Scientific Whaling by IFAW [article added :: 19-01-2006]

Release date: 20-06-2005
Source: IFAW

This 12 page article by IFAW gives an up to date study on the contentious issue of "Scientific" Whaling.

More info:
> Download Review

Whale Rescue - A Story of Blessing [article added :: 13-01-2006]

Release date: 15-12-2005
Source: SF Chronicle

If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle today, Thursday 15th December 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by 100s of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She had 100s of yards of line (rope) wrapped around her body - her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her - a very dangerous proposition; One slap of the tail could kill a few rescuers. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around - she thanked them... some say it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.