1949, the wife of a lawyer in Florida, USA, disclosed her strange experience of being rescued from drowning at sea in Natural History magazine: when she was swimming at a beach, she suddenly fell into an underwater undercurrent, and rows of turbulent waves came at her. Just when she was about to go into a coma, a dolphin swam quickly, gave her a sharp push with its sharp beak, and then pushed her several times until she was pushed into shallow water. After waking up, the woman looked around to see who saved herself. However, there is no one on the beach, only a dolphin is playing in the offshore water. In recent years, there are more and more similar reports, which shows that dolphins were never invented by people.
Dolphins will not only push drowning people to the shore, but also come forward to rescue sharks when they eat people. 1959 in the summer, the passenger ship "Rio Arteiro" crashed in the Caribbean due to explosion, and many passengers struggled in the rough sea. Unexpectedly, it never rains but it pours. A large group of sharks came around and everyone would be buried in the belly of the fish. At this critical juncture, groups of dolphins suddenly appeared like "heavenly soldiers and heavenly generals", pouncing on greedy sharks, driving away demons in the sea and turning passengers in distress into safety.
Dolphins are always an animal that helps people in trouble. When people are in danger in water, they often get its help. Dolphins have won the reputation of "lifeguards at sea", and many countries have promulgated laws and regulations to protect dolphins. So why do dolphins save people? Before people fully understood dolphins, they were always thought to be sent by God to protect human beings. Due to the progress of science, the understanding of dolphins is further deepened, and its mystery is gradually uncovered. So, is it instinct or thinking that dolphins save people?
Zoologists have found that dolphins are not limited to humans. They will rescue their sick companions. During the period of 1959, American zoologist De Herb Nale and others saw two dolphins swimming towards a dolphin injured by explosives, trying to rescue their companions. Dolphins will also help newborn dolphins, sometimes this move is blind. In an ocean park, a little dolphin died at birth, but it was pushed out of the water by its mother. In fact, almost all objects that do not actively move in the water will attract the attention and great enthusiasm of dolphins and become their "rescue" objects. Some people have done many experiments, and the results show that dolphins will do the same thing to anything floating in front of them, whether it is a dead turtle, an old air cushion, a lifebuoy or a wooden board. 1955, a dolphin rescued its old enemy-a young tiger shark 1.5 meters long, and even lifted it out of the water for eight consecutive days. As a result, this unlucky little shark finally lost his life.
According to this, marine zoologists believe that the life-saving virtue of dolphins comes from their "caring nature" for their children. It turns out that dolphins are mammals that breathe with their lungs. They can dive into the water when swimming, but they have to put their heads out of the sea to breathe every once in a while, otherwise they will suffocate. Therefore, for newborn dolphins, the most important thing is to reach the surface as soon as possible, but if there is an accident, the dolphin mother's care behavior will happen. She gently lifts the dolphin with her beak, or holds the pectoral fin of the dolphin with her teeth to make it surface until the dolphin can breathe on its own. This caring behavior is the instinctive behavior of dolphins and all whales. This instinct is formed in the process of long-term natural selection, which is very necessary for protecting the same kind and continuing the race. Because this behavior is independent of the object, once the dolphin meets the drowning person and mistakenly thinks it is a floating object, it will also have the same push-pull reaction, thus saving people. In other words, it is a coincidence that the inherent behavior of dolphins coincides with the exciting phenomenon of "saving people".
Some scientists believe that it is a simplification to attribute the rescue behavior of dolphins to an animal instinct, and its root is to underestimate the wisdom of animals. Oceanographers believe that dolphins have the same learning ability as humans, even slightly better than chimpanzees, and are known as "wise men" in the ocean. Studies show that dolphins are far superior to chimpanzees in both absolute and relative brain weight, and learning ability is closely related to intellectual development. Some people think that dolphins have larger brain capacity than chimpanzees and are obviously animals with high IQ and thinking ability. Its "feat" of saving people is completely a conscious act. Because in most cases, dolphins will push people to the shore, not the sea. At the beginning of the 20th century, near the Atlantic Ocean in Mauritania, there was a poor fishing village, El Mahara. Dolphins in the Atlantic seem to know that people are suffering from hunger, and often drive a large number of fish from the high seas to the port to help fishermen cast nets to catch fish. In addition, anecdotes similar to dolphins helping people fish have also been reported in Australia, Myanmar, South America and other places.
What is the reason why dolphins are so single-minded to humans? In front of sharks, dolphins are crazy killing gods. It is easy to attack humans, but there is no record of dolphins hurting people. The most incomprehensible thing is that even if someone kills a dolphin, other dolphins on the scene just watch and never answer blows with blows. For dolphins with strong cooperative spirit, this kind of performance really puzzles zoologists.