[ Previous Article ] - [ Articles ] - [ Next Article ]

Fins to Feather

by Scarlet Colley - June- 2003

Where are those dolphins? The much anticipated question as the family on board skims out onto the Laguna Madre Bay with Angel and CetaDog. Don’t worry about that right now , the dogs will let you know when the dolphins are near. First let’s learn a little about the wonderful dolphins of South Padre Island. The best thing about them is they are bay dolphins so they are more than likely close by. The next best thing is that they are wild dolphins. They have no routine to speak of and they go where they want too when they want to. They are protected by the Federal Government in the United States so that helps them stay free and wild and from being harmed. In Japan they are still hunted for food and eighteen thousand of them were slaughtered just last year to end up as a meal on a table. Thank goodness when we see dolphin on a menu here in the United States it means the Dolphin fish or El Dorado rather than the mammal we all love so much and find horrifying to kill for food.

Our love for dolphins comes from the fact that they give us so much joy. They experience the joy of family and life as we do. They have an emotional evolution as we do and we share that with them. But remember that dolphins do not have hands so that they do not have to reach out and touch something like we do to understand it better. Their fingers changed into flippers long ago. So the type of feeling that they have is one of rubbing up against each other and we all know that type of touching is reserved even among us for family members and friends, not strangers. So touching a wild dolphin is not something that they would like. Now a dolphin in captivity is use to the human touch and that is something very different.

There go the dolphin dogs to their stations. They have used their eyes, ears and nose to locate the dolphin. They must be close by. Because the dolphins world is a water world most of their time is down below us. They are part of our world, the air world to breath. There they are coming up for a breath. There they are. Now they are bringing their eyes up too to have a look at who is on board today and perhaps to sense the reactions of those onboard to them. They may be interested in coming closer and playing a little if there is nothing else they are doing at the time. Children and babies gather their curiosity and they always come up to the boat to see them. The children feel the spray of the dolphins in the air and hear them sing to them under the boat. There is definitely touching going on here but it is touching of the heart. The dolphins of South Padre Island are permanent residence and will live here their entire lives of up to forty five years. So children that come back to vacation year after year can grow up seeing the same dolphins. Watch the dorsal fins on their backs and see if they don’t look different.

[ Top ]