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Speaker 2: Oh hey, it's still the extra power bank you always
Speaker 2: forget to charge and bring in with you, which I
Speaker 2: did this week on a trip Ali Ward. And this
Speaker 2: is part two at ofphense two things number one. Start
Speaker 2: with Part one to get all the basics and all
Speaker 2: the science scandals. There's some evolutionary mind blowers at theirs.
Speaker 2: Blowhole sex. Start with Part one, Do not cheat yourself,
Speaker 2: then come back to this part because it gets weirder.
Speaker 2: It gets weirder. Part two is weirder. Welcome. If you
Speaker 2: don't already love this ologist, you will. We all do again.
Speaker 2: They got their PhD in Dolphin Cognition and Communication, and
Speaker 2: they've authored two books on dolphins, plus a new one
Speaker 2: if Nietzschee were on Narwall, What Animal Intelligence Reveals about
Speaker 2: Human Stupidity. Those books are linked in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Also link in the show notes are Patreon, where you
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Speaker 2: You can submit questions before the interviews. That's patreon dot
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Speaker 2: Get yourself a swimsuit if you need one. Thank you
Speaker 2: to everyone also who rates and subscribes and makes us
Speaker 2: number one on the science charts. Also, you just want
Speaker 2: us another webbe this week, so thank you. And if
Speaker 2: you've ever left a review, I've read it with my eyes,
Speaker 2: and to prove it, I read a fresh one, such
Speaker 2: as from someone named Annoyed Vocalist who said this show
Speaker 2: is something special. Ali Ward is the sassy late night
Speaker 2: version of Missus Frizzle, and Ologies is the party bus
Speaker 2: on which you will wake up hungover from an intellectual bender.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that, all board, So let's get it started,
Speaker 2: shall we. Okay, we're going to get back to Nova
Speaker 2: Scotia with our guest who was in Nova Scotia as
Speaker 2: we recorded this to chat about sensory deprivation enlisted military dolphins.
Speaker 2: Should you ever pay money to cuddle a dolphin? Dolphins
Speaker 2: on drugs, all kinds of drugs, vengeful marine mammals, aquatic horniness,
Speaker 2: dolphin doulas, and more with researcher, author, and your new
Speaker 2: favorite land mammal and legendary dolphinologist, doctor Justin Greg. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, I have so many questions? Can I ask them?
Speaker 3: Yes? Please? Oh gosh, I bet there's an LSD question
Speaker 3: in there. I hope.
Speaker 2: Let me check, let me find and control yep for Gregha.
Speaker 2: Four people asked about Let's get straight to it. Ada mcbatty,
Speaker 2: Adam Lee, Allen Spencer, Lizzie Baker. Adam mcbatty's words, what
Speaker 2: is your take on the nineteen sixty one study with
Speaker 2: dolphins on LSD to see if they'll form a more
Speaker 2: human language? First, some question, asker Adam Lee, Allan Spencer.
Speaker 2: I'd like to know more about the LSD experiments on dolphins.
Speaker 2: I think we all would.
Speaker 3: What do you know? Well? That was back to our
Speaker 3: old friend John Lilly. At some point while the experiment
Speaker 3: was going on trying to teach Peter to speak English.
Speaker 3: He also was like, hey, what happens if you give
Speaker 3: a dolphin LSD? And so he just injected dolphins with
Speaker 3: LSD to see if he could stimulate something. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure interspecies communication. And I believe he also because he's
Speaker 3: the inventor of the you know, the isolation tank that
Speaker 3: you go into and it's like dark and you're floating
Speaker 3: in water.
Speaker 2: So one might call it a sensory deprivation tank because
Speaker 2: the water is your exact body temperature. You can't even
Speaker 2: feel it. There's no sound, no light, just chill time
Speaker 2: with your racing thoughts or no thoughts hopefully. But some
Speaker 2: folks do not like the sensory deprivation terms. So you
Speaker 2: can also call this cozy water coffin, an isolation tank,
Speaker 2: or a float tank or a float pod or a
Speaker 2: float cabin, or a floatation tank, or a sensory attenuation tank. Whatever,
Speaker 2: it's none of my business. Now you can buy one
Speaker 2: for thirty two thousand dollars or you can find a
Speaker 2: deal on some sessions. And once I read that they
Speaker 2: filter the water between people, I was like, sign me up.
Speaker 2: This seems fun. But I've never done it, but anyway,
Speaker 2: there was a film in nineteen eighty starring William Hurt
Speaker 2: that was based on John C. Lally's research into these tanks,
Speaker 2: and apparently renowned theoretical physicist Richard Feynman dug them. Legend
Speaker 2: has it that floating in the dark helped John Lennon
Speaker 2: conquer heroin addiction, and as a friend to Timothy Leary,
Speaker 2: John C. Lily was known to just drop pharmaceutical grade
Speaker 2: acid in the float tank and just plumb the depths
Speaker 2: of his own mind. Now, if you'd like to hear
Speaker 2: more about this in his own words, you can check
Speaker 2: out John C. Lally's published academic work titled Programming and
Speaker 2: Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer, or his more conversational memoir
Speaker 2: titled Tanks for the Memories, which you know, he came
Speaker 2: up within the tank on drugs and was like, brilliant,
Speaker 2: I did it.
Speaker 3: That's his that's his stick. And so he would take LSD,
Speaker 3: he'd inject dolphins with LSD and then he would hope
Speaker 3: there'd be some sort of communication or something. So that
Speaker 3: was a thing he did, and that was one of
Speaker 3: the things that like people didn't like, like his his collaborators,
Speaker 3: like Carl Sagan was a friend of Lily because because
Speaker 3: Lily at the time, NASA was interested in if aliens
Speaker 3: come down, how do we learn to speak with aliens?
Speaker 3: And so they were like throwing money at him because
Speaker 3: they're like, if you can learn to speak with dolphins,
Speaker 3: then we can use that to speak with aliens. So
Speaker 3: like he was, Palas was like Drake, I'd be there though,
Speaker 3: you know from the Drake equation, and like yeah, So
Speaker 3: they were all like they were in this thing called
Speaker 3: the Order of the Dolphin, like Carl Sagan and Lily. Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was a whole thing.
Speaker 2: It was a whole thing, and it was a secret
Speaker 2: meeting in nineteen sixty one. It was also attended by
Speaker 2: a guy named Frank Drake, who during that conference wrote
Speaker 2: the Drake equation, which is an argument of probabilities that
Speaker 2: estimates the number of possible active intelligent civilizations in the
Speaker 2: Milky Way. He wrote it during that conference. Also during
Speaker 2: this meeting, they got word that one attendee, the biochemist
Speaker 2: Melvin Calvin, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his
Speaker 2: work in photosynthesis. You've probably memorized the Calvin cycle that
Speaker 2: was him. So they found out. They drank a case
Speaker 2: of champagne, they talked turkey about martians, they listened to
Speaker 2: John C. Lilly describe giant dolphin brains, and they called
Speaker 2: themselves the Order of the Dolphin, and then they officially
Speaker 2: rebranded to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence or SETI. Yep,
Speaker 2: SETI started as the Order of the Dolphin. What a weekend,
Speaker 2: What a good reason to put up an out of
Speaker 2: office reply, you know.
Speaker 3: But when he started giving LSD the dolphins, They're all like,
Speaker 3: wait a second here, and so that's sort of started
Speaker 3: his path into the sort of kippie case counter culture.
Speaker 2: Did people stop being friends with him? Did he get
Speaker 2: like vintage canceled at some point?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly I think he got vintage canceled by
Speaker 3: mainstream science. His writing was very popular with people in
Speaker 3: like regular non scientists, but the more he wrote about
Speaker 3: dolphins being like aliens and whatnot, the more the scientific
Speaker 3: mainstream community didn't want to hear about it, and that
Speaker 3: actually messed up the field for a long time. So like,
Speaker 3: if in the seventies you were like, I want to
Speaker 3: study dolphins, people are like, oh, you're a weirdo hippie
Speaker 3: like it wasn't cool to study dolphins for a long
Speaker 3: time because there was some damage from the pr essentially.
Speaker 2: Well, what happened to the dolphins on LSD, I think nothing.
Speaker 3: I think that he was disappointed that nothing seemed to
Speaker 3: be going on, like no discernible difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see concerns where if they have to
Speaker 2: breathe consciously too, if you are tripping your dolphin balls off,
Speaker 2: which I don't even know dolphins. I'm sure dolphins have balls.
Speaker 2: They're probably internal.
Speaker 3: Giant internal balls. Yes, they're very large.
Speaker 2: Well, they mate with a lot of people, so that
Speaker 2: means that they need a lot of sperms, right right.
Speaker 3: The sperm will wash out the sperm of the other
Speaker 3: previous males. It's a whole thing. Yeah, m hmm.
Speaker 2: So it's just fire hose in That's exactly.
Speaker 3: That's why I think it's right. Whales have the largest
Speaker 3: like testicles on the planet, and they're just like a
Speaker 3: third of the body way of the animal, some insane number,
Speaker 3: and it's just literally fire hoses out all of the
Speaker 3: sperm from previous mating in them. Sen's what it's for.
Speaker 3: It's just a lot to diack in so weird.
Speaker 2: Luckily there's a lot of water washed things off, I guess.
Speaker 2: But but okay, so LSD didn't find out much.
Speaker 3: No, it seemed not to do anything. But you're right,
Speaker 3: I mean, what if it did. They were tripping and
Speaker 3: they went underwater, and they thought they were at the surface,
Speaker 3: and they opened their blowhole and died.
Speaker 2: Right Well, on that note, so many people Deli Dames,
Speaker 2: Letdia Armstrong, Rachel Davis, Melissa Heart wanted to know. In
Speaker 2: Rachel Davis's words, I would love to hear a deep dive.
Speaker 2: I don't think there was a pun intended on How
Speaker 2: they communicate? Is the idea that they have to lepathy
Speaker 2: flimflam so telepathy? Can they communicate? Do they have ESP?
Speaker 2: Melissa Hart read Madeline Lingle's young adult novel A Ring
Speaker 2: of Endless Light, where the angsty teenage protagonist communicates telepathically
Speaker 2: with dolphins. Melissa Heart said, that's false.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Do they have ESP?
Speaker 3: No, But it's just like regular ESP. Like I mean,
Speaker 3: there's no evidence for this in any way whatsoever. There
Speaker 3: are weird ways that they communicate, but it's not psychic.
Speaker 3: And again that goes right back to these sixties experiments
Speaker 3: when they were trying to establish psychic connections to dolphins.
Speaker 3: So no good to know.
Speaker 2: A bunch of people who I will say via my
Speaker 2: own mammalian mouth sounds, Madison Campbell, Brandy Lyin, Nathan Ander, Leaflight,
Speaker 2: Mallory Nettleton, Laura M. Smith, Nita Chen, Bethsauder, Becky the
Speaker 2: SCCCRESS scientist, Lisay Becker Slayer, Deli Dames, Lydia Armstrong, Rachel Davis,
Speaker 2: Melissa Hart, Lannybauer, megandawc, Catherine Spencer, James Parks, Louis Via,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Edwards, Sodoni, s Jess Feldner, Charlie and beck who asked,
Speaker 2: is anyone working on translating their language? I would like
Speaker 2: to speak with them? So, y'all all of you want
Speaker 2: to know? In Stacey Wick's first time question askers words,
Speaker 2: how close are we to being able to translate dolphin
Speaker 2: speak as seen on SeaQuest? I'm not sure if you've
Speaker 2: seen seaquests? Oh yes, can yeah, Darwin, can that happen?
Speaker 3: It is a goal for some researchers, and it has
Speaker 3: been a long goal for many researchers. The idea being
Speaker 3: like yes, dolphin communication is actually pretty complicated. They make
Speaker 3: a lot of different sounds, and the question is do
Speaker 3: they function like words? Are they talking about complicated topics?
Speaker 3: And so they've been attempts over and over again to
Speaker 3: translate that using you know, mechanically or using information theory
Speaker 3: or using the AI stuff that's now happening. And I
Speaker 3: think people like me are quite skeptical because I just
Speaker 3: don't think there's anything to translate. Other people are more
Speaker 3: hopeful that there is stuff in there. And I was
Speaker 3: just reading How to Speak Whale, Tom Mustel's book. It's
Speaker 3: it's really interesting and it's got a he's very helpful.
Speaker 3: It's a great book. He's very helpful that this new
Speaker 3: AI specifically, there's a new research group out there studying
Speaker 3: sperm whales, I think, and they're putting all these tags
Speaker 3: on them and listening to them, and they think if
Speaker 3: you throw enough data into an AI, it will be
Speaker 3: able to yank out language like stuff. I personally do
Speaker 3: not think that that's the case, because I don't think
Speaker 3: sperm whales are dolphins need language to still be very smart,
Speaker 3: complicated animals. I just think we really want them to
Speaker 3: have language. We just were not giving it up. We
Speaker 3: just I get it. I get it, I get it,
Speaker 3: and I'd love to be proven wrong. I just don't
Speaker 3: don't think it's going to happen.
Speaker 2: Also, if you're wondering how dolphins generate those clicks and
Speaker 2: those whistles, turns out they have some nasal air sacks,
Speaker 2: and they've got a couple of sets of lips just
Speaker 2: inside their blowhole, one pair being monkey lips or phonic lips.
Speaker 2: I didn't name them, someone in the eighteen hundreds did,
Speaker 2: and the phonic lips are derived from the artists formerly
Speaker 2: known as nostrils, and those clicks being straight through that
Speaker 2: fatty melon organ that majestic forehead, which yes, looks like
Speaker 2: a giant brain, but it's just a thing called a melon.
Speaker 2: Their giant brains are behind it. But delphinological sources report
Speaker 2: that these marine mammals can make up to four sounds
Speaker 2: at the same time. Do they even have ears to
Speaker 2: appreciate that? Yeah, they do, teeny tiny ones. And one
Speaker 2: of my greatest professional sorrows I'm going to tell you
Speaker 2: right now is that in twenty eighteen, I recorded a
Speaker 2: whole episode on whale earwax for you, and I'm not
Speaker 2: allowed to release it. Because of an NBA. It hurts me.
Speaker 2: But anyway, with up to a trillion possible noises and
Speaker 2: word type of sounds dolphins can make, we can't use
Speaker 2: our own big dry ears or computers to fully understand
Speaker 2: them yet. So patrons Megan daw and Jacqueline Church wanted
Speaker 2: to know could dolphins make sentences like dogs on those
Speaker 2: large word pads? What about using assisted communication devices or
Speaker 2: using some sort of press a button with the flipper
Speaker 2: and say give me that fish and not that one.
Speaker 3: Yes, And that's what That's what I think is most
Speaker 3: exciting about dolphins when when they started doing those experiments.
Speaker 3: So this is after Lily's stuff all dried up, and
Speaker 3: then you had lou Herman at a Koalo Basin and
Speaker 3: Hawaii doing these amazing experiments with these dolphins where they
Speaker 3: gave them artificial symbol systems, so they would use whistles
Speaker 3: or hand gestures to represent words and concepts, and they
Speaker 3: tested the dolphins' ability to comprehend those and they were
Speaker 3: geniuses like up on you know, on par with like
Speaker 3: great apes, Like they could follow like sentences with five
Speaker 3: or six words in them, giving them really complicated instructions
Speaker 3: that would change the instructions based on the word order
Speaker 3: like syntax, and they could understand that, which is really
Speaker 3: mind blowing and one of the reasons I wanted to
Speaker 3: study them. I'm like, well, well that's very language like,
Speaker 3: So how much do they understand, Like how sophisticated is
Speaker 3: their cognition when it comes to language.
Speaker 2: What were they communicating during those experiments?
Speaker 3: Well, those are only one way, So it was humans
Speaker 3: telling dolphins to do stuff. Those are the best experiments
Speaker 3: with the clearest results. But as soon as you start
Speaker 3: getting them to like press buttons and stuff, there's always
Speaker 3: this one thing that seems to crop up, which is
Speaker 3: dolphins don't give a shit. They don't seem interested in
Speaker 3: communicating with people like they we know that they can
Speaker 3: learn this stuff, but when you put one of these
Speaker 3: giant keyboards, like I had a colleague with a giant
Speaker 3: keyboard underwater, meaning they just they're just not into it.
Speaker 2: Do you ever feel like Amy Adams arrival.
Speaker 3: That's how a lot of people study in communication would
Speaker 3: maybe frame themselves. I think, like, maybe we'll crack the code,
Speaker 3: will be the ones to figure it out. That's how
Speaker 3: I started my career. I'm like, you know, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be one of these people that helps crack the code.
Speaker 3: And then the more I study, the more I realize like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: it doesn't seem like they have a code that needs cracking.
Speaker 3: There's no secret system. And also they don't really need
Speaker 3: it because like they're so complicated in what they're doing
Speaker 3: without having to use language as the underlying explanation for
Speaker 3: their behavior. My whole career now is like, look, animals
Speaker 3: are sophisticated in their own right. They do not have
Speaker 3: to be human like to be interesting. Let's celebrate dolphins
Speaker 3: for what they are, which is not humans, not doing
Speaker 3: human language stuff. Brains tell you nothing about an animal's intelligence,
Speaker 3: like it seems like it should. Humans have big relatively
Speaker 3: big brains soda dolphins. But like once all the scientists
Speaker 3: like compile like, okay, well a tool using species should
Speaker 3: be a larger brain species. Well guess what ants use
Speaker 3: tools or whatever? Like any example of an intelligent thing
Speaker 3: from a big, grain brained animal you can find in
Speaker 3: some small brained, smooth brained animal. And so there's no,
Speaker 3: strangely no correlation between intelligence and brains.
Speaker 2: So as you are berrating yourself for forgetting your cousin's
Speaker 2: boyfriend's name despite meeting him at a barbecue two months ago.
Speaker 2: Just remember, dolphins aren't necessarily smarter than you, but they
Speaker 2: can recognize their friends through whistles and the taste of
Speaker 2: their pea. I'm sorry what. According the twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: study titled cross moodal Perception of identity by Sound and
Speaker 2: Taste and Bottlenosed Dolphins, researchers messed around and found that
Speaker 2: playing a dolphin's friend or family member's signature whistle hey
Speaker 2: paired with a gustatory stimuli, meaning the taste of that
Speaker 2: friend's urine, made the dolphin be like, hey, richie, richie,
Speaker 2: where are you? Dude? Much more than just the whistle
Speaker 2: or the p alone And if you're like, why did
Speaker 2: you make me learn? If dolphins can recognize other individuals
Speaker 2: by the smell of their pea, blame patron Laura M. Smith,
Speaker 2: who asked, is it true they can recognize other individuals
Speaker 2: by the smell of their pea and remember not smell taste.
Speaker 2: Speaking of recognition, do dolphins know how cute they are?
Speaker 2: What about the mirror test?
Speaker 3: Yes, they're one of the few species that passes the
Speaker 3: mirror self recognition test, So There's lots of versions of
Speaker 3: this test, but the idea is, if you put a
Speaker 3: mark on an animal somewhere that it doesn't know about,
Speaker 3: and put them in front of a mirror, if they
Speaker 3: use the mirror to inspect the mark in any way,
Speaker 3: like if they twist and turn their head or if
Speaker 3: you're a chimpanzee you touch the mark, then you know
Speaker 3: that they know that the reflection is actually them. So
Speaker 3: they have a concept of a self awareness that at
Speaker 3: least involves mirrors. And dolphins have passed this on multiple occasions.
Speaker 3: There's a relatively recent study, even more elegantly done that
Speaker 3: proves like, yeah, they can totally pass that test.
Speaker 2: Okay, what about accents? Mikaela A Gabriel, Nathan Andrew Leaflight,
Speaker 2: Catherine Dakota Harriman, Brooke Brennan, Evan, Via Vincenzio, Aaron Burbridge,
Speaker 2: and Vincent Hill. In Aaron's words, do different dolphin pods
Speaker 2: have different dialects? Do they have regional accents? Vincent wants
Speaker 2: to know.
Speaker 3: In killer whales and orca, Absolutely, And that's one of
Speaker 3: the hallmarks of the species is that they live in
Speaker 3: these family group pods, and those family groups over the
Speaker 3: years will develop sounds that are specific to that family group.
Speaker 3: So you can easily tell the difference between one family
Speaker 3: group versus another based on their clicks and whistles sound
Speaker 3: and that's sort of evolving over time. And so that's
Speaker 3: a great example of culture in an animal species. Bottlenose
Speaker 3: dolphins not so much because they don't split along those
Speaker 3: same lines, and so they're you know, regionally. You might say, oh,
Speaker 3: this dolphin group might sound different to that, but it's
Speaker 3: nowhere near as clear as killer whales. That's they absolutely have.
Speaker 3: And the official term is dialects. They have different dialects.
Speaker 2: I mean some monkeys have this as well, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are other species that will have regional or
Speaker 3: family specific ways of speaking. Birds as well ways of speaking,
Speaker 3: but you know what I mean. They you can tell
Speaker 3: the different populations based on differences in shared signals.
Speaker 2: What about play? A bunch of people want to know
Speaker 2: look at you? Patrons Alison Arkush, Ashley Oakley Roslin has
Speaker 2: been Shannon Ryan, Angela Clark, Emma Garchigan and Alex Morella
Speaker 2: says I recently heard that adolescent dolphins behave like teenagers.
Speaker 2: They go through phases of the cool new thing, to
Speaker 2: do together.
Speaker 4: J R.
Speaker 2: Rolff wants to know why do spinner dolphins spin, and
Speaker 2: so Julia Volmar and Sophia a. So what are they
Speaker 2: doing when they're in Abby's words, like jumping so high
Speaker 2: out of the water. Are they having fun?
Speaker 3: It seems like it a lot of the times when
Speaker 3: a dolphins jumping out of the water, it is for fun.
Speaker 3: Spinner dolphins are a weird case. We actually think the
Speaker 3: spinning is a communicative signal sometimes, so it actually is
Speaker 3: more than just fun, although fun might be the reason too,
Speaker 3: but that might be used for a long distance communication
Speaker 3: if one dolphin sees another one off in the distance
Speaker 3: spinning around. Maybe, But most of the time, if you
Speaker 3: see dolphins doing things that seem playful, guess what, it's
Speaker 3: totally playful. They're very playful animal species. They love games
Speaker 3: of keep away, they love like, you know, they'll grab
Speaker 3: our items and like carry them around, you know, and
Speaker 3: and just generally do stuff that we would associate with fun. Indeed,
Speaker 3: you do find that younger dolphins are more playful, for sure,
Speaker 3: and they get reprimanded by their moms if they like.
Speaker 3: If you get a young dolphin that's a juvenile that
Speaker 3: comes out and like tries to play with a human.
Speaker 3: The mom will be like, angry, he's my friend, though.
Speaker 3: Do you know what they do to the moms will
Speaker 3: do to discipline a dolphin. This is interesting. So young
Speaker 3: juvenile is over, it's doing something it shouldn't. The mom
Speaker 3: will take it and pin it to the seafloor and
Speaker 3: hold it down for a little bit, because that's scary
Speaker 3: if you're a dolphin and you need to breathe. And
Speaker 3: so that's the way a mom will discipline, and they
Speaker 3: will do that to humans that are annoying them as well.
Speaker 3: And so there's only been one recorded incidence of a
Speaker 3: wild dolphin killing a human, and that was in Brazil
Speaker 3: with this lone sociable dolphin that used to come up
Speaker 3: to the beach and people would pet it or whatever,
Speaker 3: which is weird in its own right. But there was
Speaker 3: some like drunk dudes and they were trying to put
Speaker 3: out a cigarette or something in the dolphin's blowhole and
Speaker 3: it no, dolphin got real angry. And that's the only
Speaker 3: example of a dolphin killing people. But I mean they
Speaker 3: were being terrible, like what the heck?
Speaker 2: Yes, And that was documented and verified, I.
Speaker 3: Believe, so I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere on
Speaker 3: the Internet. Therefore it's due.
Speaker 2: Justin was kidding and he said it's been documented. So
Speaker 2: I dug around and let me take you back to
Speaker 2: December nineteen ninety four. Friends was a brand new television
Speaker 2: situation comedy and Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas
Speaker 2: is you had just dropped. Meanwhile, in Karra, Guadituba, Brazil,
Speaker 2: a couple of drunk guys on a beach were trying
Speaker 2: to tie stuff to a dolphin's tail, but they fucked
Speaker 2: with the wrong dolphin. So Cheo, named for the location
Speaker 2: of Sao Sebastio, was a male dolphin who popped up
Speaker 2: around March of that year, nineteen ninety four. He was
Speaker 2: friendly with female swimmers. Side note, scientists say female humans
Speaker 2: have similar pheromones to lady dolphins. But as more and
Speaker 2: more people heard about him and they flocked to meet
Speaker 2: this affable lad, some of those people were dicks and
Speaker 2: had dicks. Folks would try to grab the bottlenosed dolphins
Speaker 2: pectoralphins for some kind of oceanic pony ride, and even
Speaker 2: try to pour beer down his throat, and maybe Cheo
Speaker 2: was like, no, I would literally rather taste my mom's
Speaker 2: yarin And as a result, between March and November nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety four, Cheo has put twenty eight people in the
Speaker 2: hospital and by December he'd fucking had it. And when
Speaker 2: these two guys on the beach started messing with his
Speaker 2: tail fluke, Geo rammed them both repeatedly in the chest
Speaker 2: with his rostrum, inflicting fatal internal injuries on a guy
Speaker 2: named yal Paolo Morea and breaking the rib of survivor
Speaker 2: Wilson Pedroso, who I just spent well over an hour
Speaker 2: looking up on Facebook and Instagram to be like does
Speaker 2: his bio say dolphin attack survivor, like be nice to dolphins?
Speaker 2: And all I found was a government official in saw
Speaker 2: Paolo with the same name an appropriate age, like he
Speaker 2: could have been drunk on a beach back when metallic
Speaker 2: pants were cool. But alas if it's him, he's put
Speaker 2: his dolphin harassing passed behind him. But as for Chio,
Speaker 2: I know you're like what happened to the dolphin?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: He was never charged with any crime, and he came
Speaker 2: back to the bay a few times, but then either
Speaker 2: took off with the traveling pod and probably talked shit
Speaker 2: about humans forever understandably, or one of our species may
Speaker 2: have hunted him down secretly. Nobody knows. So let this
Speaker 2: be a lesson. Do not taunt a dolphin. Plus, it
Speaker 2: could cost you a lot of money. The Marine Mammal
Speaker 2: Production Act of nineteen seventy two means that could cost
Speaker 2: you up to one hundred ges to haze a dolphin
Speaker 2: or get within fifty yards of them. So what is
Speaker 2: the ologies lesson about marine mammals? Gidtos? Pretend they have
Speaker 2: a restraining order against you. Yes, very good. Otherwise they
Speaker 2: may actually make you the star of your own Greek tragedy.
Speaker 2: Well good for them. I mean dolphin vengeance, do it?
Speaker 2: It's vigilante. But I mean Emma Garchigan and Signy s
Speaker 2: and Kate Unker want to know what's with the boat obsession.
Speaker 2: Kate wants to know. I've always wondered why do dolphins
Speaker 2: chase boats?
Speaker 3: Yep, if you've been on a boat, you've probably seen
Speaker 3: a dolphin like chasing after your boat. And that's because
Speaker 3: the dolphin will create a pressure wave at the bow
Speaker 3: of the boat, which is literally pushing the water along,
Speaker 3: so they can the dolphin can sit right in that
Speaker 3: pocket and be pushed along without having to swim. So
Speaker 3: it's just fun. It's like surfing, and the back of
Speaker 3: the boat is the same thing. It's churning up all
Speaker 3: this water and it creates these waves and they'll they'll
Speaker 3: stay in that slip stream and like come out of
Speaker 3: it like they're surfing. So it's just fun.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Okay, what about Nidarian Knight wants to
Speaker 2: know how large can pods get. I've seen videos of
Speaker 2: hundreds across the water column.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's species specific, like spinner dolphins, common dolphins. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they come together in groups of thousands especi usually when
Speaker 3: they're traveling. So if they all got some wlayce to
Speaker 3: go for some reason, like they're headed out to the
Speaker 3: hunting grounds, they'll do that. Other species not so much.
Speaker 3: You don't see, you know, bottle, those dolphins are not
Speaker 3: doing big group stuff.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of like a commuter train full
Speaker 2: of dolphins.
Speaker 3: That's totally what it is. And there's stampedes they're called.
Speaker 3: I love it. It's so cool.
Speaker 2: Zoe Jane Page Price Emmagerschigan want to know about assisted birth.
Speaker 2: Zoe Jane says, dolphin dulas. Let's talk about the magical
Speaker 2: Intuiti world of dolphins supporting labor and birth. Is that true?
Speaker 2: Are they? Like push bush?
Speaker 3: I've had so many questions over the years from expectant
Speaker 3: moms who are asking me to help them find a
Speaker 3: dolphin to help them give birth down like it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know how this entered into the zeitgeist, but
Speaker 3: it's there. So the idea is if you go out
Speaker 3: into the ocean, the dolphins will come up to you
Speaker 3: and they will help you with the birth. I don't
Speaker 3: know what that help would mean. I guess hang around
Speaker 3: you something. So people are like, how do I do that?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, okay, don't don't do that because like
Speaker 3: if you are on the boat trying to give birth
Speaker 3: in the middle of the ocean, like you're nowhere near
Speaker 3: like proper medical care, like and there's no ambulance, so
Speaker 3: like it's it can be dangerous. Also, you know what's
Speaker 3: in you know, when you're giving birth, a lot of
Speaker 3: stuff comes out of you. Some of it is blood
Speaker 3: or like placenta or whatnot. And do you know what
Speaker 3: likes blood and placenta to eat sharks? Do you know
Speaker 3: what's in the ocean sharks, right, and so like, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't want to put like a newborn in a placenta.
Speaker 3: You're chumming the waters essentially, Like, that's not a good idea.
Speaker 3: But some people want to give birth like in a
Speaker 3: shallow pool for some reason and hope a dolphin comes. Like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I've heard that that's happened. That's probably fine, But I
Speaker 3: don't know why they think dolphins care about helping humans
Speaker 3: give birth. They do help each other, sure, you know,
Speaker 3: like a mom will help push the newborn up and
Speaker 3: then the other dolphins will gather around. That's fine, but
Speaker 3: we're not dolphins.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's someone who accepts bitcoin to put you
Speaker 2: in a pool with dolphins while you're giving birth.
Speaker 3: Right, you can find any service anywhere in the planet.
Speaker 3: This is what I know.
Speaker 2: So, yes, very accurate. So while you could seek out
Speaker 2: an institute on the Big Island for this kind of
Speaker 2: delivery in an idyllic setting, let's consider that there's not
Speaker 2: a lot of solid evidence or even liquid evidence that
Speaker 2: this is good for you or even safe biologically. Also,
Speaker 2: for what I understand, the residents of Hawaii don't want
Speaker 2: anyone there. They're like don't come here, goopen up the
Speaker 2: beaches with your placenta and then flying back to Ohio.
Speaker 2: Don't now if you're wriggling waxy newborn gets eaten by
Speaker 2: a dolphin because you've had one of these berths. You
Speaker 2: can actually blame a Russian gentleman named Igor Tarkovsky who
Speaker 2: started this trend by suggesting that his pregnant clients take
Speaker 2: a dip in the Black Sea and make nice with
Speaker 2: the mammals there. And I was looking into it. I
Speaker 2: was like, who is this eiger gray? And looking ato
Speaker 2: him for their I found in nineteen ninety six newspaper
Speaker 2: clipping with the headline controversial birth guru charged with sex assault.
Speaker 2: And that explains that the former gym teacher who became
Speaker 2: a self professed father of sea berths wasn't neptune in
Speaker 2: a lab coat, but he was just a good old
Speaker 2: fashioned predatory creep. So scratch dolphin berth off the bucket list.
Speaker 2: You're good. Spend the money on a float tank and
Speaker 2: a fistful of acid tabs. Don't do that. But as
Speaker 2: long as we're back on drugs, A few folks had
Speaker 2: a question about stoned dolphins, and I'm looking at you,
Speaker 2: great Lady Dane who asked do dolphins really enjoy drugs?
Speaker 2: You were not the only one who needed to know.
Speaker 2: People want to know, Angela Clark, Olga, Mary and Thomas,
Speaker 2: Matt Thompson, RM and Steven Shelley want to know what
Speaker 2: are they doing with pufferfish? Mary and Thomas says, I
Speaker 2: heard they use pufferfish to get highs. It's true.
Speaker 3: Okay. So there was this I think BBC show called
Speaker 3: Spy in the Pod, and it had this whole little
Speaker 3: segment where there's like dolphins playing with the puffer fish
Speaker 3: and the puffer fish is all blown up and they're
Speaker 3: like dragging it around and you look at the dolphin
Speaker 3: and its eyes are like half closed. It looks totally stoned,
Speaker 3: and they're like, ah, man, that dolphin is high on
Speaker 3: the toxin from the puffer fish. And then that just
Speaker 3: became like a thing that everyone knew on the internet.
Speaker 3: When attacked pufferfish released a neurotoxin.
Speaker 2: In high doses it can kill, but in small doses
Speaker 2: it has an arcotic effect. It seems to be affecting
Speaker 2: the dolphins.
Speaker 3: But the thing with is the dolphin in the thing
Speaker 3: didn't have like high it didn't have squinty high eyeballs.
Speaker 3: If you shine a light on a dolphin, like, it
Speaker 3: will squint its eyes. And this was the dolphin like
Speaker 3: in the sunlight. Okay, that's probably all that was. That's
Speaker 3: totally normal, And like, there's zero evidence that they can
Speaker 3: actually extract the poison from a puffer fildver, no one's
Speaker 3: ever seen that. And even if they did extract it,
Speaker 3: there's zero evidence. I can't remember the name of the
Speaker 3: like tetra dioxone or.
Speaker 2: Something, tetra do oxin, whatever.
Speaker 3: That poison is, we don't know if that has psychotropic
Speaker 3: properties for a dolphin. That's all just insane speculation. And
Speaker 3: so like there's like eight steps of speculation based off
Speaker 3: of this one video. So I'd say, is it possible, yes?
Speaker 3: Is it likely?
Speaker 2: No good to know flimflam being busted. I looked so
Speaker 2: deep into this, and I was so excited to unearth
Speaker 2: the twenty fourteen paper Nature and Narcotics dolphins use pufferfish
Speaker 2: tsin to achieve trance like state. But then following the
Speaker 2: citation trail, I realized that all rose led back to
Speaker 2: that one incident from the twenty thirteen BBC video called
Speaker 2: spy in the pod. So that is a sum total
Speaker 2: of the research and observations on this, although I did
Speaker 2: find the twenty sixteen paper called Preliminary Report of Object
Speaker 2: carrying Behavior by Provisioned Wild Australian humpback Dolphins in tin Canbay, Queensland, Australia,
Speaker 2: which noted that while observing the humpback dolphins quote, there
Speaker 2: was one instance where a live puffer fish was thrown
Speaker 2: at staff repeatedly, which, if nothing else, is evidence that
Speaker 2: transcending the sea in the land is the etiquette of
Speaker 2: puffer puffer pass. Okay, this is something I should have
Speaker 2: asked you right up top, Emma Luck who signed themselves
Speaker 2: sincerely attired killer Whale researcher cool asked in all caps,
Speaker 2: not even an ask, a demand. Please explain to everyone
Speaker 2: that killer whales are both whales and dolphins, and that
Speaker 2: all dolphins are just tooth whales. Wait a minute, Wait
Speaker 2: a minute, dolphins are whales. Wait no, killer whales are dolphins.
Speaker 2: Help me out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those words are all useless. I hate them all.
Speaker 3: I hate the word whale and dolphins. So we call
Speaker 3: killer whales whales. We also call them orcas they're actually
Speaker 3: a dolphin species, right, and then you have pilot whales.
Speaker 3: Guess what also a dolphin. Melot headed whale also a dolphin.
Speaker 3: And you can also use the word dolphin to apply
Speaker 3: to porpoises sometimes and sometimes people use it to talk
Speaker 3: about the dolphin fish, which is a fish. A whale
Speaker 3: is generally a big animal, so a pilot whale is
Speaker 3: a large dolphin. A killer whale is a large dolphin.
Speaker 3: Bailean whales are all pretty large. The zifids you know,
Speaker 3: these other tooth whales, they're also large. The word dolphin
Speaker 3: usually refers to oceanic dolphins or river dolphins. There's no
Speaker 3: definition that will always be true. It's just common names
Speaker 3: that we randomly give them based mostly on size.
Speaker 2: Well as a person who studies dolphins, and now that
Speaker 2: we know that orchis are dolphins, is it bad to
Speaker 2: call them killer whales? Or I read somewhere that it's like,
Speaker 2: how how dare you call them a killer whale? Same
Speaker 2: with great white sharks. Just call them a white shark
Speaker 2: because it's villainizing animals that are like, I'm just out
Speaker 2: here eating fish and sometimes they'll kill some seals. Leave
Speaker 2: me alone about it. What's the scientific community thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you will see that it'll change from year to
Speaker 3: year in the literature as to the sort of like this,
Speaker 3: the political and the social stuff will change the words
Speaker 3: that we use. A lot of people will not use
Speaker 3: killer whale because they don't want to confuse people into
Speaker 3: thinking they're big, vicious, dangerous things. So you'll see orca
Speaker 3: quite a bit in the literature. But I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't know what this year is all about. Maybe
Speaker 3: there's more orca than killer whale. It's it's just a
Speaker 3: personal preference. And the same way people will talk about
Speaker 3: dolphins being in captivity and sometimes they'll say dolphins in
Speaker 3: human care. That you will use different language depending on
Speaker 3: what industry is involved in the in the publication.
Speaker 2: That's good to know, I guess. Speaking of killers, let's
Speaker 2: talk military uses. Alison Arkush, John Clinton, Kate, Georgia Hester Dingle.
Speaker 2: Want to know how are dolphins used for national defense?
Speaker 2: Or what other cool jobs do dolphins have? Are we like, hey,
Speaker 2: I drop something. You know that video of a beluga
Speaker 2: whale that goes and gets a phone. Yes, Like, I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's the same bluga that's just like
Speaker 2: in a ford that got lost was wearing like a
Speaker 2: Russian bra. But who's out there working for who?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, as soon as they figured out that dolphins
Speaker 3: were kind of smart and I could echo locate, They're like, okay,
Speaker 3: how do we weaponize this, because that's that's the way
Speaker 3: of the world, right, And so originally the US Navy
Speaker 3: and the Soviets were training dolphins and seals to do
Speaker 3: military stuff. So that could be patrolling boats, you know,
Speaker 3: where they might signal if the enemy diver approaches, or
Speaker 3: looking and tagging mines that kind of thing. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: have a lot of uses when in construction and things
Speaker 3: like that. So the military has been training and using them,
Speaker 3: not in anti personnel. The US Navy has said they've
Speaker 3: never trained a dolphin to kill like an enemy diver.
Speaker 3: The Soviets, on the other hand, quite famously did try
Speaker 3: and use their dolphins to kill and other enemy divers.
Speaker 3: They had like explosive darts or so we've been led
Speaker 3: to believe on the dolphins, so it could like poco
Speaker 3: diver and like kill them with employees and around. So
Speaker 3: those are the dolphins that in Sevastopol in Ukraine Crimea
Speaker 3: now part of Russia. They were there for a long
Speaker 3: time in the Black Sea being trained to do this stuff,
Speaker 3: and then they were retired for a while, and I
Speaker 3: think they were like just like people would do swim
Speaker 3: with dolphin programs. And I think they've been re enlisted,
Speaker 3: so I believe that they've started up the program again.
Speaker 3: But that's just a very long history. Because they're trainable, smart,
Speaker 3: they can dive in a way that humans can't do.
Speaker 3: We can't replicate that with technology to the same extent. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: we use them for military purposes like everything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where do I start to fill you in on this?
Speaker 2: I'm just going to give you the broadest strokes I can. Okay,
Speaker 2: So the Navy has maintained marine mammal training centers off
Speaker 2: the California coast for over half a century. The US
Speaker 2: Navy Marine Mammal Program gets them out of the Gulf
Speaker 2: of Mexico and then takes them to San Diego, trains
Speaker 2: them to find underwater mine to nark on enemies, swimming
Speaker 2: around to pick up dropped objects. Oh and also the
Speaker 2: dolphins guard nearly a quarter of the US nuclear warfare stockpiles.
Speaker 2: What sea lions are also on the payroll, which is
Speaker 2: probably pretty fishy in a lot of ways. But apparently
Speaker 2: sea lions have great underwater eyesight and quote high professionalism,
Speaker 2: and I'm willing to guess they're better at spreadsheets than
Speaker 2: I am. And I asked Google if Navy seals use
Speaker 2: Navy seals, but it was like, I don't know what
Speaker 2: you're saying. There's also many, many, many rumors that certain
Speaker 2: militaries have trained dolphins to hypodermically stab at underwater enemy
Speaker 2: divers with a needle, giving them a blast of CO
Speaker 2: two in their veins, killing them instantly. Everyone keeps very
Speaker 2: mum about that because loose monkey lips sink Navy ships.
Speaker 2: But one animal activist named Rick O'Barry says that all
Speaker 2: marine mammals should be freed from captivity alledges at the
Speaker 2: military binds the rostrum of dolphins shut when they're in
Speaker 2: the ocean so they'll come back to base to feed,
Speaker 2: which does not sound cool. But why does this guy
Speaker 2: care so much about enlisted dolphins? Okay, remember in part
Speaker 2: one when I mentioned the Flipper dolphin actress, who's a
Speaker 2: dolphin named Kathy who died possibly by suicide after filming wrapped,
Speaker 2: and she was left without a lot of enrichment in captivity. Okay, well,
Speaker 2: Rick o'berry was her trainer and Kathy died in his arms.
Speaker 2: In fact, he trained all five dolphins that played Flipper,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't until Kathy's death that he came to
Speaker 2: the realization of the harm he may have done by
Speaker 2: promoting captive dolphin spectacles. So you may have also seen
Speaker 2: him in the future length documentary The Cove. Well, now,
Speaker 2: really quick, let's go to Norway. What about that beluga
Speaker 2: whale Vladimir who showed up with a Russian camera harness
Speaker 2: in a Norwegian harbor? Is he okay? Not great?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: According to the nonprofit one he sustained a lot of
Speaker 2: propeller injuries and they're trying to get him and other
Speaker 2: cetaceans a fjord of their own so that Vladimir can
Speaker 2: finally be safe from the roving deli slicers of harbor
Speaker 2: traffic and live out his post military retirement. Speaking of warfare,
Speaker 2: Savannah Glenn Jen's girl Alvarez first time question asker Katzi
Speaker 2: is attack and Elder Zamora want to know? In Katzi's words,
Speaker 2: do dolphins actually attack sharks?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 3: Yep, They're constantly on the lookout for sharks, and a
Speaker 3: lot of their behavior like where they go at night
Speaker 3: and the mother is protecting the babies and staying in
Speaker 3: small groups. It's to protect from sharks. A neon, A
Speaker 3: dolphin is just like a bite sized shark, snack delicious,
Speaker 3: and so they are nervous. And if you look at
Speaker 3: a wild dolphin population, they are usually covered in sharks scars.
Speaker 3: And if a dolphin suddenly doesn't show up one day,
Speaker 3: it's probably been eaten by a shark. So yes, they're
Speaker 3: nervous of them. And there are many examples of dolphins
Speaker 3: when attacked facing off against the shark. They usually they
Speaker 3: will ram them really fast, hit the gills, that sort
Speaker 3: of thing, try and chase them away. But most of
Speaker 3: the time, if a shark is around, they just leave.
Speaker 2: Good to know they're not out there necessarily hunting sharks,
Speaker 2: but they can fight back if they need to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: On that note, Greg Wallach wants to know, are dolphins
Speaker 2: gay sharks? Cat black Lars wants to know, please talk
Speaker 2: about gay dolphins. I believe Greg is referencing a very
Speaker 2: famous line from Glee in which someone states, do you
Speaker 2: know that dolphins are just gy sharks. Cat wants to know,
Speaker 2: let's talk about gay dolphins. Are dolphins gay? Some of them?
Speaker 3: So it's an interesting question. There is in the animal
Speaker 3: kingdom in general, a awful lot of same sex sexual behavior.
Speaker 3: It is pretty normal, doesn't matter what species, insects, dolphins, dogs, whatever,
Speaker 3: pretty standard stuff. Dolphins have a reputation for being extra gay.
Speaker 3: And that is because if you hang around with dolphins,
Speaker 3: you will notice pretty quickly penises.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Especially young male dolphins will whip them out all the
Speaker 3: time in a social context, and they're often together with
Speaker 3: other young male dolphins, and the penises are just out
Speaker 3: doing whatever. Sometimes they'll poke around with it, like like
Speaker 3: the blowhole, but they don't go in or whatever, as
Speaker 3: into the anus. Sometimes that will happen. This is standard stuff,
Speaker 3: mounting each other, totally normal social behavior. And you can't
Speaker 3: think of it in the same way you think of
Speaker 3: like a human penis being. You know, if you see
Speaker 3: somebody out in public with a penis running around doing stuff,
Speaker 3: that's weird and debian normal for a dolphin. And that's
Speaker 3: because I always think of it this way, Like dolphins
Speaker 3: don't have hands, they have these dumb you know, pectoral fins,
Speaker 3: which just can slap at best, they can slap around
Speaker 3: and rub each other. A penis, however, is a little
Speaker 3: more mobile, so it functions almost like a hand or
Speaker 3: a finger. So if you had to like high five
Speaker 3: your friend, like a penis is a potential thing that
Speaker 3: you can use, And so they use them in social context,
Speaker 3: which doesn't always involve sex, which you know, is it
Speaker 3: a gay behavior. I don't know, because they're just engaging
Speaker 3: in so much like same sex behavior, just like every
Speaker 3: other species that yeah, there's sort of every dolphin is
Speaker 3: by let's just say that's wonderful.
Speaker 2: I'm happy for the dolphins to be honest. Yes, And
Speaker 2: you mentioned tool use and curious cat and mushroom. Morgan
Speaker 2: on that note, wanted to know curious cat ass do
Speaker 2: they really use eels as flesh lights? And mushroom Morgan
Speaker 2: wants to note is it true that dolphins bite the
Speaker 2: heads off of fish and then use them to perform self?
Speaker 3: Kind of?
Speaker 2: I guess I think that.
Speaker 3: There was an actual article where a dolphin was rubbing
Speaker 3: on like a dead fish that I read. That is
Speaker 3: a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, my Google search history. It's a
Speaker 2: real real mess. People wow, okay, yes. John Hopkins University
Speaker 2: neuroscience professor David Lindon detailed an account of a captive
Speaker 2: male bottlenose dolphin wrapping a live eel around it stick
Speaker 2: like a bacon wrapped hot dog, made of climaxing sea creatures,
Speaker 2: at least one of them was climaxing, and the eel
Speaker 2: was initially offered as food, but the dolphin was like,
Speaker 2: I got a better idea, and it had to take
Speaker 2: a detour to Dicktown and I'm sure he ate it afterward,
Speaker 2: which is also gross now that I'm saying that out
Speaker 2: loud now. Patron Alison Holloway wrote in I read a
Speaker 2: book when I was a teen that dolphins used jet
Speaker 2: streams to masturbate, so maybe it's a similar situation, which
Speaker 2: then made me search for this book so that I
Speaker 2: could find its author and ask why. But it was fruitless,
Speaker 2: and it led me down a dark, unforgettable path about
Speaker 2: a man who had an emotional and physical and intercoursical
Speaker 2: affair with a dolphin and where else but Florida in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies, and he wrote about it in a
Speaker 2: memoir called Wet Goddess. Let's clear my cash, and let's
Speaker 2: take a break to throw some money at people who
Speaker 2: deserve it, such as the Dolphin Communication Project, whose mission
Speaker 2: is to promote the scientific study of dolphins and inspire
Speaker 2: their conservation. Just And is a senior research associate with them,
Speaker 2: and the Dolphin Communication Project will be linked in the
Speaker 2: show notes. So thanks sponsors for making that donation possible. Okay,
Speaker 2: where I'm sorry? Where were we? Okay? Oh, still on
Speaker 2: dolphins jerking it? Which, okay, after some fact checking, I
Speaker 2: remain changed Again. I'm different than before. I'm worse off.
Speaker 2: I saw a gleeful male dolphin pushing a beheaded fish
Speaker 2: up against aquarium glass and making love to it. Flesh
Speaker 2: lights not supposed to be made of actual flesh, let
Speaker 2: alone dead fish. None of us are here to judge,
Speaker 2: just to gag and to learn.
Speaker 3: Look, dolphin penises can. You can use them as a finger,
Speaker 3: but they're also innovated in it, just like a human penis.
Speaker 3: Rubbing on it feels good, So okay, they rub penises
Speaker 3: on stuff. That makes sense. It turns out that dolphin
Speaker 3: vaginas have like a giant clitorist right at the opening. Right,
Speaker 3: This is relatively for some reason, ge I can't imagine
Speaker 3: why they didn't spend looking, you know, as much time
Speaker 3: looking at vaginas as they did penis. Is that took
Speaker 3: a female research to be like, oh yeah, that giant
Speaker 3: like doub a battery size flesh tube that's a glitteris yo.
Speaker 3: So they're very sensitive, just like human and so like, yeah,
Speaker 3: so females rub on stuff too, because you know what,
Speaker 3: that's what sex parts are for in animals.
Speaker 2: Oh god, thank god someone said it. That is wonderful.
Speaker 2: And again it makes me happy for the dolphins. I
Speaker 2: am rooting for dolphins more than I thought I would.
Speaker 2: I thought this was going to be similar to the
Speaker 2: Otter episode, and I was going to look at dolphins
Speaker 2: with a certain amount of distrust. But on that note,
Speaker 2: so many people I will list them in an aside
Speaker 2: bear with me and imagine how excited you'd be to
Speaker 2: hear your name. But Rachel Gardner, r M, Rachel Kendrick,
Speaker 2: timoth Wang do you take into poetry? Ali Vessells, Marissa
Speaker 2: emmant Wald, Kendall Hargustelia Zeleski, Kelly Brockington, and Kate Sometimes
Speaker 2: Mary have the Grapefruit, Hannah Feldman, Delli Dames, Lauren leg
Speaker 2: Nanny Olza, Popka thirty four, Lindsay James, Amy, Martin senamnk,
Speaker 2: Marissa al Ham, Derek Allen, Jocelyn Alcontera, Garcia, Dan, Allison Bebery,
Speaker 2: Rachel m and Mark Hewlett need to know in Ken
Speaker 2: Chambers phrasing, are dolphins actually assholes? Or is that just
Speaker 2: propaganda started by the Sea Lion Mafia? Also Simpsons watchers
Speaker 2: Dominicq McDermott, Teagan Dan and Katie Holtman want to know.
Speaker 2: In Natalie Snyder's first time question, asker's words shares my
Speaker 2: thoughts and says, I feel very skeptical toward dolphins ever
Speaker 2: since I grew up with the Simpsons episode where they
Speaker 2: took over the world and had a constant smile. It
Speaker 2: makes me not trust them.
Speaker 3: Itch begins, the dolphins are upon us?
Speaker 2: Are they actually evil? A bunch of people want to know?
Speaker 2: Are they assholes?
Speaker 3: I think of this as like the nickelback effect, Like, Okay,
Speaker 3: you had dolphins that everyone loved in the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 3: right then the Internet happened, and as soon as a
Speaker 3: lot of people love a thing, you just have this
Speaker 3: group that pops up and just hates on them, Like
Speaker 3: nickel Beckel. Why do we all hate Nickelback? I don't know.
Speaker 3: People just pile on and so you try and find
Speaker 3: a couple examples of dolphins doing a mean thing, like ooh,
Speaker 3: their smile is creepy, and then you just hate on them.
Speaker 3: And so I honestly think it's just a weird like
Speaker 3: there's nothing that they're like. Otters hate on otters like that,
Speaker 3: what they're doing is terrible. Dolphins don't do anything like that,
Speaker 3: and yet really we hate them.
Speaker 2: Oh this makes me so happy, And you know, on
Speaker 2: that note, Lindsay James Kendall m a bunch of people
Speaker 2: I'm gonna list. Nathan Andrew Leaflight, emmett Wald and Katie
Speaker 2: Sharp asked the obvious, philosophical and kind of guilty follow up.
Speaker 2: Are we anthropomorphizing them too much?
Speaker 3: On average? Probably that's generally the case for most animals. Like,
Speaker 3: if you're a scientist and you want to know what's
Speaker 3: really going on, you don't do that. You know, you're
Speaker 3: trying not to anthropomorphize, but in everyday life we can't
Speaker 3: help but do it, especially because even though they look
Speaker 3: like a big fish, dolphins act like a chimpanzee or
Speaker 3: a crow. They act completely different from what a fish does.
Speaker 3: They're more human like, and so we therefore start attributing
Speaker 3: all the human stuff we can to them. That's totally
Speaker 3: normal human way of doing things. So from a scientist perspective, yes,
Speaker 3: don't anthropomorphize them too much. It's usually bad for them,
Speaker 3: that's usually the way of things. But from an everyday
Speaker 3: human perspective, like I get it.
Speaker 2: I think it's so interesting because I know that anthropomorphizing
Speaker 2: is bad to a degree, but also on the other
Speaker 2: end of the spectrum is considering any animal to just
Speaker 2: be a thing like a rock that can be treated
Speaker 2: willy nilly.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't have any answers. I have only questions here.
Speaker 2: But on that note, okay, Nita chen Whin, he's a witch,
Speaker 2: and a bunch of folks looking at you, friends, Heath
Speaker 2: All and Ali, Paul Bojarvis, Patricia Evans, Abby Greeb, Christy Lison,
Speaker 2: Larissa Beckafantassel and AZM want to know, in Nita's words,
Speaker 2: what is the most ecologically friendly way to observe dolphins
Speaker 2: without disrupting their habitat? And is it ethical to swim
Speaker 2: with a dolphin in a Swim with Dolph package complicated
Speaker 2: questions those.
Speaker 3: Yes. The problem is when you have like a dolphin
Speaker 3: watching industry, if it's not tightly regulated, you have a
Speaker 3: lot of boats hanging around a local group of dolphins,
Speaker 3: and that's generally bad for them. They get hit by
Speaker 3: rotating blades or they you know, they can't get their food.
Speaker 3: So generally, if there were no humans looking at dolphins,
Speaker 3: that'd be good. If you are just on a boat
Speaker 3: by yourself and dolphins come up to you, great, love it.
Speaker 3: That's awesome. You can even try getting in the water
Speaker 3: see what happens. It's not a problem. But if you're
Speaker 3: in one of these like scenarios where there's like thirty
Speaker 3: boats and they're all going to see the dolphins, that
Speaker 3: you might want to be like, Okay, I don't want
Speaker 3: to be involved in that. Swim with Dolphin programs are
Speaker 3: all over the map in terms of whether not they're
Speaker 3: good or bad. Sometimes you have a facility that's not
Speaker 3: accredited and it's just like some random guys like I'm
Speaker 3: going to go get some dolphins and throw them in
Speaker 3: my pool and then get charge people. That's not great.
Speaker 3: Other facilities are quite nice and they take care of
Speaker 3: their dolphins, and they're very concerned. But that is a
Speaker 3: personal decision about how you feel about captivity, and the
Speaker 3: science will tell you if you go looking, it's either
Speaker 3: the dolphins are suffering or the dolphins are fine. So
Speaker 3: cherry pick whatever you want, whatever you think, but definitely
Speaker 3: do some research and think about it.
Speaker 2: So it's really a personal choice. But we have presented
Speaker 2: a bunch of info that might make you see a
Speaker 2: swimming with Dolphins encounter in a new light. And according
Speaker 2: to the Dolphin Project, a number of aquariums and Swim
Speaker 2: with Dolphins programs around the world purchase live dolphins caught
Speaker 2: in bloody drive hunts like those seen in the cove.
Speaker 2: And remember the Marine Mammal Protection Act forbids folks from
Speaker 2: getting too close anyway. But as myself, as a resident
Speaker 2: of southern California, I have seen so many dolphin pods
Speaker 2: splashing and spinning off shore, and that was plenty close
Speaker 2: to make my heart just leap along with them from afar.
Speaker 2: Anytime you can see a dolphin, it's fine. You don't
Speaker 2: have to actually smell the dolphin. Now, speaking of humanity's encroachment,
Speaker 2: some of y'all wanted a status check on dolphin in general,
Speaker 2: such as Shannon O. Grady, Crystal Wilson, Matt Sicado, Char Harrison,
Speaker 2: Jessica Durant, Alexander beid Yanna Wisnooski, Frank Kendricks, Lower Rosenbaum,
Speaker 2: Logan Dudley, kat Beecklars, Kayla Pilcher and Cheat and Jolly Pandala,
Speaker 2: who asked are they all dying? Do we need to
Speaker 2: save them? Any dolphins need saving?
Speaker 3: There are some species like those river dolphins I was mentioning.
Speaker 3: They're usually in trouble because they live next to people,
Speaker 3: so yes, they need some help. There's the Vakita that
Speaker 3: I think that's a porpoise species. Is only like ten
Speaker 3: of them left. That's crazy, like they're probably going extinct.
Speaker 3: The Baiji, which was a Chinese river dolphin that has
Speaker 3: gone extinct. There aren't any other species of oceanic dolphins
Speaker 3: that are really in trouble. They're usually doing pretty okay,
Speaker 3: but usually the closer species lives to land, the more
Speaker 3: it's screwed.
Speaker 2: Let's say you're going to dip into some dolphin fiction
Speaker 2: or nonfiction. Where do we start? Do we start with
Speaker 2: a cove, what's good dolphin material. Never vintage Flipper, I'm
Speaker 2: sure I don't.
Speaker 3: I never was a Flipper fan. I like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm a nerd, right, so I like the sea dolphin,
Speaker 3: the Darwin ridiculous or the Johnny Nuemonic. Remember when they
Speaker 3: had that crazy dolphin Jones. It's a fish, it's a mammal.
Speaker 3: But like there, I swear there are no good depictions
Speaker 3: of dolphins on film in a fiction universe, like forget it,
Speaker 3: just don't bother. I don't know. There are lots of
Speaker 3: great documentaries about dolphins, so just start looking around for
Speaker 3: BBC stuff or whatever. The cove is just going to
Speaker 3: make you very sad. It's important to know about it,
Speaker 3: but like it's not light. I don't have any recommendation
Speaker 3: read a nonfiction book, like read a science book about dolphins.
Speaker 2: There's lots of for example, yours.
Speaker 3: I'm not the problem my book. I feel bad.
Speaker 2: I am oh no, I am again linked right in
Speaker 2: the show notes or available wherever you get books. Are
Speaker 2: Dolphins Really Smart? The Mammal Behind the Myth? And twenty
Speaker 2: two fantastical facts about dolphins, Plus his brand new book
Speaker 2: If Nietzsche Were in Our Wall? What Animal Intelligence Reveals
Speaker 2: about human stupidity. More of doctor Justin Gregg's wit and
Speaker 2: wisdom for your amusement, linked in the show notes. I
Speaker 2: think you landed on the right career for yourself. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine dolphins having a better spokesperson.
Speaker 3: Thanks. I hope I'm helping them.
Speaker 2: You're like a great press secretary for dolphins, just like
Speaker 2: fielding flame plan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they pay me in fish and eels. It's I'll
Speaker 3: take whatever they want to send my way. I'll take it.
Speaker 2: A little little flipper tap here and there. Good job.
Speaker 3: Listen. I've still never been like affectionately gently touched by
Speaker 3: a dolphin that would That's all I need to make
Speaker 3: my life, so please, somebody just pectoral fin rub me wherever, a.
Speaker 2: Little tidy pat on the back.
Speaker 3: It's a little tiny pat, yeah, with a flipper, though
Speaker 3: not with a penis. I just want to be clear
Speaker 3: about that. Boundaries, boundaries, that's all right.
Speaker 2: So ask aquatic experts awkward questions because look at all
Speaker 2: that you've just learned. And follow Justin Gregg on TikTok
Speaker 2: and Twitter and everywhere. The links are in the show notes.
Speaker 2: We love him. Also, he has chickens, so if you
Speaker 2: listen to the two parter are on chickens. It's going
Speaker 2: to be a real vendiagram of interest here and his
Speaker 2: books are obviously linked in the show notes. He's as
Speaker 2: wonderful a writer as he is a guest, and we
Speaker 2: are at ologies on Twitter, on Instagram. I'm at Ali
Speaker 2: Ward with one L on both. I'm at TikTok at
Speaker 2: Ali underscore Ologies. I'm trying, y'all, I'm trying. Smologies are shorter,
Speaker 2: kid friendly episodes with no swares. They're available at the
Speaker 2: link in the show notes. Aliward dot com slash Smologies.
Speaker 2: Thank you Zee Credriguez, Thomas and Mercedes Maitland for working
Speaker 2: on those. Ologies. Merch is available at ologiesmerch dot com.
Speaker 2: Thank you Susan Hale for managing that and so much
Speaker 2: more literally like everything for Ologies. Noel Dilworth does all
Speaker 2: the scheduling. Aaron Talbert admins Theologies podcast Facebook group, with
Speaker 2: assists from Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Fealtis, who is having
Speaker 2: a birthday. Happy Birthday. Shannon Emily White of the Wordery
Speaker 2: does professional transcripts. Kelly Ardwyer makes our website and can
Speaker 2: make yours too. Nick Thorburn made the theme music. Assistant
Speaker 2: editors are the wonderful Mark David Christensen and Jarrett Sleeper,
Speaker 2: and our lead editor is recent COVID survivor, thankfully Mercedes
Speaker 2: Maitland of Maitland Audio. And if you stick around at
Speaker 2: the end of the episode, I'm going to tell you
Speaker 2: a secret, and this week the secret is weird. Okay.
Speaker 2: So I got stranded in Texas. I was coming back
Speaker 2: from Hantsville, Alabama, and we had an emergency landing over Waco,
Speaker 2: Texas because of a Bonker's lightning storm that came out
Speaker 2: of nowhere. So anyway, I was on planes forever. Turned
Speaker 2: out couldn't get a flight out. I had to stay
Speaker 2: in Dallas for two days technically Grapevine, Texas, which has
Speaker 2: a convention center called the Gaylord, which is kind of
Speaker 2: like Disneyland and Vegas all in the biodome. It was
Speaker 2: a site to behold. Anyway, I was stranded there this
Speaker 2: week for a couple of days, and so I just
Speaker 2: kind of bummed around waiting for a flight that I
Speaker 2: could catch. And there was a guy who was a
Speaker 2: notary who came down next to me. I was just
Speaker 2: like working in the lobby writing researching dolphin masturbation, as
Speaker 2: one does. And this guy sent down next to me,
Speaker 2: an older gentleman, and he appeared to be a notary.
Speaker 2: And then another guy met him and they started to
Speaker 2: sign some paperwork, and the guy who met up with
Speaker 2: him was like a younger guy. He looked sad or defeated,
Speaker 2: and I started to get really sad that maybe this
Speaker 2: guy was signing divorce papers at Vegas, like hotel in Texas,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, man, I hope this is
Speaker 2: a good thing he's signing. Anyway, what did I do?
Speaker 2: I looked at the name time he was wearing because
Speaker 2: he was at a conference, and then I looked him
Speaker 2: up and I was very happy to see that. No,
Speaker 2: he's got a wife and a baby on the way,
Speaker 2: and I think he just flips houses, which is sad
Speaker 2: and it problematic maybe in its own I don't know
Speaker 2: how he does his business, but I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this guy was probably just jetlaged or something. So anyway,
Speaker 2: that's me being a creep. And I don't know. I
Speaker 2: was like, I need to make sure this stranger isn't
Speaker 2: going through something. I don't know what I would have done.
Speaker 2: I didn't even have like a granola bar I could
Speaker 2: have offered him anyway. All's well, that ends well. I'm
Speaker 2: back home. In all, I had twenty two flight delays,
Speaker 2: two emergency landings, and three extra days in Texas. And
Speaker 2: then I came home and I slept face first on
Speaker 2: the catch for a couple of days. Okay, by bye.
Speaker 4: Packidermatology, fabiology, for do zoology, lithology, zoology, meteorology, theology, apology, seriology, seology.
Speaker 3: Space dolphins in this you should see them.
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