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IPFS News Link • Animals and Pets

Dolphins often seem to want to befriend us - do they know something we don't?

• http://www.independent.co.uk,

You'll have heard of Fungie, a male bottlenose who has forsaken the open sea to live inside the harbour mouth of Dingle in Ireland, a placid, shallowish inlet bordered by low verdant hills that are speckled with sheep.

According to local legend, he has been swimming around in this area, not much bigger than a few city blocks, since October 1983.

It doesn't seem like an auspicious place for a dolphin to settle. Though the bay is sheltered from snarlier North Atlantic conditions – churning seas, huffing winds – dolphins are well equipped for these things and seem to revel in the action: surfing down the faces of waves, leaping through the wakes of ships, playing in the maelstrom. By comparison, the Dingle harbour is a pond. Nor could it be mistaken for a marine sanctuary: it was known in the past for its abundant reservoirs of rubbish. So what was a full-grown bottlenose with an entire ocean at his disposal doing in this fish tank? And where was his pod? Being part of a pod means protection, hunting success, society, sex, kin – the fundamentals of dolphin existence.


www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm