Voices in the Ocean Read online

  “Anyone see him anywhere?” The captain, a man named Jimmy Flannery Sr., stuck his head out of the wheelhouse. No one had, but not for lack of looking. People were stacked on top of one another with their cameras trained on the water. Every slight ripple or movement caused the flotilla of tiny sailboats to go tearing off in one direction or another. “Where is the dolphin?” a girl asked loudly. “Where is he, Mum?” Her mother lifted her up so she would have a better view. “Emily, you have to watch out,” she said, “because the dolphin is out there somewhere.”

  Suddenly, from the stern, a lady in a yellow slicker yelled: “There he is! Oh my God! I saw him!” With a whooshing outbreath the dolphin had surfaced, and he was close enough that I could see his distinctive, gnarled face. Fungie looked pugilistic, and disconcertingly huge, with white markings around his chin like an old man’s whiskers. He bore noticeable scars: his beak was roughed-up at the tip and his tail was missing a divot. On his throat he had the dolphin equivalent of deep wrinkles. Still, this was a big, tough bottlenose. I had read that Fungie was twelve feet long and weighed seven hundred pounds, but those numbers are low. My first thought was that the Most Loyal Animal on the Planet could knock someone’s lights out if he wanted to.

  After following alongside us Fungie dove, rocketing into the air seconds later next to the sailboats. He seemed especially fond of the boat with the red sails. Fungie spy-hopped and lunged out of the water and splashed the sailors with enthusiasm. “It’s sport for him,” a bearded man in a checked cap said to me, nodding in Fungie’s direction. “Rogue dolphin, he is. They leave their flock.”

  Watching the dolphin, I felt a palpable glee, a doglike joy, emanating from him. No wonder the town had claimed him as their own—Fungie is as recognizable as any person. His face is as unique as yours or mine; in photographs it is obvious that he has aged over time. To see him is to know with certainty that he is an individual with his own quirks and traits and habits, his own way of presenting himself in the world. There is absolutely no way that the Dingle Chamber of Commerce could surreptitiously swap in another dolphin as a substitute for Fungie, should he ever fail to report for boat-playing duty.

  Once he’d arrived at our party Fungie was a skilled entertainer. He made perfect aerial arcs and walked on his tail and at one point he swam along on his back, clapping his pectoral fins. Many of his moves were surprisingly showy, less like natural behaviors than tricks he might have been taught in some lost chapter of his pre-Dingle life. Observing him, I found myself wondering if Fungie’s past might have included a stint in captivity; if, back in the day, he had lived in a sea pen and somehow escaped. It had been known to happen, especially during storms. In Hurricane Katrina, for instance, eight dolphins from the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport, Mississippi, were swept from their pool by a thirty-foot storm surge, and landed in the Gulf of Mexico. Those dolphins ended up back in custody, but on occasion captives do get away. Unfortunately, they don’t always know where to go or what to do with their sudden freedom, and so they seek out what they’ve become accustomed to: people. Could Fungie be a refugee?

  We can only guess. Fungie’s early life history is irretrievable, erased by time and myth. Like every solitary dolphin, he comes with a built-in mystery: How did this happen? When, and why? Getting entangled in nets or fishing lines for a time, losing contact with his pod in rough seas, becoming orphaned or sick or injured for whatever reason—any of these situations might strand an individual dolphin, leaving him to fend for himself. Or, for all we know, Fungie may have swum into this harbor, liked it, and simply decided to stay.

  It was the Dingle fishermen who had noticed the dolphin first, and given him his name. Fungie trailed behind their boats as they returned to port, hoping, no doubt, for a handout of fish, but probably also yearning for company. At sunset he could often be seen jumping in the center of the bay, framed in silhouette like a dolphin on a movie poster. Sometimes, as if to show his gratitude or establish himself as a thoughtful neighbor, Fungie would catch pollack, salmon, and trout, and toss them into boats.

  Three years into his Dingle tenancy the dolphin got some swimming companions. Sheila Stokes and Brian Holmes, a couple from nearby Cork, showed up in thick wetsuits, slipped into the water, and began to snorkel with him. For weeks Fungie orbited them at a distance, but Stokes and Holmes were persistent, spending hours in the frigid bay. They were respectful, too, letting the dolphin initiate all contact. Their patience paid off: Fungie began to brush against Stokes’s outstretched hand. “You could sense his excitement, as well as my own,” Stokes said, “because he went off and did a few leaps and flips in the bay before coming back for more touching. And from then on, he let us touch him a lot of the time.” While Stokes rubbed Fungie’s fins and belly, and ran her hands over his beak and his head, Holmes shot video of the dolphin looking as moony as a high school kid with a crush.

  These images trickled out, followed by some local press. Soon a steady stream of people flowed into Dingle, eager to have their own transcendent dolphin encounters. In general Fungie handled it well, allowing quite a bit of interaction. He had his favorites, certain swimmers or kayaks or boats that he preferred, though whenever Stokes showed up it was as if no one else existed. The bay filled with sailors and snorkelers and diving groups, children bobbing in lifejackets, teenagers gunning Jet Skis, people rattling anchor chains and towing boogie boards to get the dolphin’s attention. Typically Fungie responded to chaos or belligerent behavior by sensibly swimming off, but one time he rammed a German tourist in the groin, an injury that sent the man to the hospital.

  These days, with the entire membership of the Dingle Boatmen’s Association operating dolphin-watching tours, plus a fleet of recreational boats plying the harbor, the swimmers had for the most part given up. In any case, Fungie seemed to appreciate speed. When Flannery opened the Lady Avalon’s throttle, the dolphin careened away from the red sailboat and began to porpoise alongside us, sailing as high as the railings. “Wahhhhhh!” yelled a boy, as Fungie burst out of the water only inches away. By now our hour was almost up; it was as though Flannery and Fungie had planned this series of leaps as a grand finale. It could not have been executed any better if it had been part of a Vegas show.

  Back at the docks, I asked Flannery which among Fungie’s repertoire of tricks was the most impressive, whether the dolphin had ever amazed him with some improvised move. The captain scratched his head beneath his cap and nodded: “He does a backflip. Comes clear out of the water.”

  I decided to share my theory, not realizing that by doing so I was committing Dingle heresy. “It seems like someone must have trained him,” I said. “Do you know if they did?” Flannery, who had been smiling pleasantly enough before I said this, turned and stared at me hard. A shadow passed fast over his face, darkening it like a thunder-cloud. “Not at all,” he said curtly, turning away dismissively. “He is a totally wild animal.”

  Dolly in France and Paquito in the Basque country; Egypt’s Olin, who befriended a tribe of Bedouins in the Gulf of Aqaba; Charlie-Bubbles from Newfoundland; Springer from Seattle and Scar from New Zealand; Chas, who loved a particular buoy in the Thames—these and so many other solitary dolphins have made themselves known to us. That is usually where the problems begin.

  The inevitable unruly relationship between a solitary dolphin and the people who want to see him vexes biologists, who fear—correctly—that these encounters will end badly for the dolphin. In this case Fungie is an exception, having far exceeded the life expectancy for a wild bottlenose who interacts daily with humans. Sadly, most friendly solitary dolphins don’t last for even a fraction as long. Their biggest threat, by far, is propellers, which seem as alluring to curious dolphins as they are deadly: scientists have heard dolphins playfully mimicking the sounds of motorboat engines underwater, the way children do with their favorite toy trucks.

  Wilma and Echo, orphan belugas from Nova Scotia, both died from propeller strikes, but not before charming thousa
nds of people, gliding up to sightseeing boats to let passengers stroke their skin. Jet, a bottlenose from the Isle of Wight, had his tail lopped off by a propeller and bled to death. Freddie, a bottlenose from Northumberland, U.K., whose companion had swallowed a plastic bag and washed up dead on the beach, liked to swim upside down beneath motorized dinghies; he also enjoyed the flume of a sewage outtake pipe. Both were dangerous attractions. The chemical-treated waste infected Freddie’s skin, turning it a grizzled white; but once again, it was a propeller that got him. Luna, an endearing lone orca calf who lived near a marina in Nootka Sound, British Columbia, was the subject of a movie, The Whale, narrated by Scarlett Johansson. He survived for five years before being hit by a tugboat.

  JoJo, a bottlenose celebrity from the Turks and Caicos Islands—the country’s government officially declared him a “national treasure”—appears to hold the record for propeller mishaps. In a single seven-year span, from 1992 to 1999, he sustained thirty-seven boat-related injuries, eight of them life-threatening. (Against the odds, JoJo made it through all that and continues to visit his usual headquarters, the waters near Club Med in Providenciales.)

  But propellers are only one hazard among many. To read through a list of friendly wild dolphins who have met violent and untimely ends is to read a list of appalling human behavior. Over in Israel, Dobbie, a bottlenose who liked to play with the air bubbles from scuba divers, washed up full of bullet holes. In Australia, Zero Three, a young male bottlenose, was poisoned by toxic chemicals that were dumped in the river where he swam. The Costa Rican, another bottlenose, fell in love with a local dog whom he would meet every day, pushed children around in a canoe, and let people ride on his back. When he became entangled in a fisherman’s net, he waited calmly for help to arrive. Instead, the fisherman gaffed him and dragged his body onto the beach. A French bottlenose named Jean Floc’h paid for his fascination with rowboats: he was beaten savagely with wooden oars. Dolphins who gravitated toward us have also been stabbed with knives and screwdrivers and even ballpoint pens, garroted by wire and fishing line, pierced by spearguns, targeted with explosives, and purposely run over by Jet Skis.

  Surrounded by people who want to swim with them, touch them, and grab their fins, dolphins can become aggressive themselves. Lone dolphins, removed from everything familiar and confused by their new acquaintances, have been known to pin snorkelers to the seafloor, break arms, ribs, and noses with their beaks, make amorous advances, and club swimmers with their tails. Far from rescuing people, if a dolphin is sufficiently riled-up he might prevent them from exiting the water, or push them farther out to sea.

  One fatal human-dolphin clash took place in São Sebastião, Brazil: a solitary bottlenose named Tião had been plagued by crowds of people dropping popsicle sticks into his blowhole and pouring beer into his mouth. Eventually the dolphin had endured enough. He sent twenty-eight of his tormentors to the hospital, but still the harassment continued. When two drunken men tried to wrestle Tião into the shallows so they could have their picture taken with him, he walloped them with his fins and tail. Both men were injured; one later died from a ruptured spleen. killer dolphin! screamed the headline in the local paper. Not long after that, Tião disappeared and was never seen again, presumed killed in retaliation.

  Lakeshore Estates, a gated waterfront community in Slidell, Louisiana, dealt more humanely with its hostile resident bottlenose, known impersonally as The Dolphin. During Hurricane Katrina the young male bottlenose had gotten separated from his pod, and ended up alone in a brackish canal in the middle of the suburb. In the seven years since his arrival, The Dolphin had done quite a bit of damage, and his behavior was becoming increasingly ornery. In a flurry of activity he’d bitten several people—including one girl he’d attempted to drag away from shore by the ankle—chased swimmers out of the water, snapped his jaws at kayakers, and body-slammed dinghies. “Slidell Memorial Hospital’s press secretary could not be reached to confirm how many dolphin attacks the hospital has recently seen,” reported the St. Tammany News from New Orleans.

  Concerned about The Dolphin’s surliness, residents held a community meeting with biologists from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The meeting’s official title was “The Slidell Dolphin Challenge: What Can We Do?” About sixty Slidell locals attended, along with a pair of sheriffs. “This thing has been a problem for years,” a thin man with a bushy white mustache complained. “Why can’t we remove it? You know if you put it in an aquarium, the problem is solved.”

  “Or maybe they should find him a girlfriend,” suggested a woman in a white pantsuit and red lipstick. (It was true that The Dolphin often swam around with an erection, which he rubbed against boats.)

  “The problem is the people,” a burly Cajun wearing a Coast Guard baseball cap shot back, looking at Mustache Man sternly. The biologists agreed: the best thing the community could do for The Dolphin was to steer clear of him. No more racing him on Jet Skis. No more feeding him bits of hot dog. No more attempts to pet him, no more following him around to take smartphone videos of his penis. The less human interaction he had, the crowd was told, the better his chances of survival. If he were ignored, The Dolphin’s bad behavior—at least the infractions directed toward his two-legged neighbors—would most likely stop.

  Aside from some mild grumbling, the Slidell community seemed to understand that, and even to empathize with The Dolphin’s circumstances. They worried aloud about The Dolphin getting shot or otherwise harmed as a result of his recalcitrance. “You know, he’s just like us,” said another man, whose home and business had been dashed by the hurricane. “He lost everything, but he’s put it behind him and is fine. He’s a survivor. People just have to leave him alone now.”

  The one thing we know for sure about lone friendly dolphins is that we are likely to meet more of them. A 2008 global census of wild dolphins who have sought human company charts a dramatic rise since 1980. In their book Dolphin Mysteries, researchers Kathleen Dudzinski and Toni Frohoff note that “with increasing frequency we are seeing greater numbers of solitary, sociable toothed whales.” Across the world, it seems, their society and ours are colliding.

  When you think about it, this culture clash is inevitable. A dolphin doesn’t end up with a Twitter account unless something has gone very wrong before that, and the oceans these days are a mad mess of trouble. Even if dolphins manage to evade our web of fishing nets and longlines, they still contend with relentless pollution, oil spills, habitat destruction, food depletion, a barrage of brain-jangling noise—the list goes on. Of course we’ll find them among us: they have nowhere else to go.

  In so many ways, I came to realize, Dingle is a best-case scenario for a podless dolphin. There is no way to watch Fungie and doubt that he is having fun. He hunts for his own food. He is savvy enough to avoid propellers and discerning enough to dodge assholes. He has bonded with people but he’s not completely isolated from his own species: at times, other dolphins venture into the bay. Lately, Fungie has been seen gallivanting with two female bottlenoses, the three of them leaping in tandem and appearing to embrace one another. Fungie, the local newspaper bragged, “is something of a ladies man.” In all situations the town protects his interests: what’s good for Fungie is good for them. And if The Most Loyal Animal on the Planet ever decides that he has been loyal to Dingle for long enough, he is free to leave as he pleases.

  Obviously, the town is praying that never happens. In 2013, to mark the dolphin’s thirtieth anniversary as a citizen, Dingle threw a three-day party, the Fungie Festival. Reading the schedule, I almost fell over in delight. Events included art and photo exhibitions (images of Fungie), poetry readings (works inspired by Fungie), concerts (music written for Fungie), historical lectures (Fungie: The Early Years), scientific talks (Fungie and Other Solitary Dolphins Around the World), children’s book readings (a series starring Fungie), conversation circles at village pubs (people ta
lking about how Fungie has affected their lives)—plus morning swims, evening swims, and a boat convoy to bless the dolphin “out of gratitude for all he offers so freely to folks and to celebrate his presence at the mouth of the harbor.”

  As I drove away from Dingle, the bay shining behind me, I gave my own silent thanks to the people who had cared enough to protect a lone dolphin, the town with a Fungie-shaped space in its heart. The dolphin has repaid them in kind, and then some. It’s an uncommon relationship and beautiful to see. I planned to keep the Fungie Festival, all the brightness of that gathering, in the front row of my mind: I knew I would need it as a talisman. The next place I planned to visit was also a picturesque fishing town. It, too, had dolphins. There, as well, dolphins played a major role in local affairs.

  But instead of being a haven for the animals, this town had chosen differently.

  “Okay now. We’ve just been told that we need to go directly to the police station for processing.” Mark Palmer stood at the front of the bus to address us. He was sweating and smiling. I liked Palmer’s voice, a reassuring baritone uplifted by a cheerful note of subversion. We may be headed into trouble, his tone implied, but we will have an excellent time. Actually, I liked everything about Palmer—and his colleague Mark Berman and, in fact, everyone aboard this tour bus with its blacked-out windows and cushy seats, winding its way through the cedar-cloaked mountains and around the coastal S-curves of the Wakayama prefecture in southeastern Japan, rolling toward our destination: the notorious dolphin-hunting town of Taiji. What I didn’t like that much was the idea of heading straight to the authorities when we got there.