Dolphin Address 32 2003
September 14, 2003
In the beginning of July I wrote how Dusty brought me a large salmon. On three, unfortunately misty, video's I took, you can see how she did this. First she is rummaging vertically upside down in the kelp and next she leads the salmon, stunned by sound, with her beak, time and again, almost inside the camera.
Well over a month I saw how she shoveled down a voluptuous bass.
Since a week or two I see and film ever more often the following pattern: she swims for a big piece of rock, that is about 4 meter under water. She goes to the edge, sways her tail up and slowly paddles along on her pectoral fins. Meanwhile she emits high-pitched fast rattles. Once I saw a large bass escape into a crevice. Unfortunately she did not catch any all those times, at least not in my presence.
I could be wrong, but I got the impression that she tried to catch a fish for me as she is very demonstrative about it. Especially this is the case off the 'Monkey rock' (the 'second cove') and the last stretch before 'Bridie beach'. I would love to film this off close, but I would not know what to do with it. Maybe I could best keep the fish in the tidal water left behind in a rock pool and later set it free. Thus I can also observe the effect of the stunning.
Would Dusty notice? She would not know every fish personally but might identify it by its wounds or other aberrations. I don't want to loose myself in fantasy, but I don't want to underestimate her expertise either. Maybe I should seek refuge here in the old Dutch proverb that 'there is more than one fish in the sea.'
In natural tribes reciprocity functions as a system to redistribute commodities and status. Thus it is a survival system for the entire tribe. This is in contrast to the accumulative system of the 'civilized world'. What is Dusty's motif for sharing the yield of her hunt? Do I, unwittingly, play a part in the tracking down as the future victim does not take heed of me? She does not have to prove her superiority in the water. Is it assistance to a landlubber or envoy of? Might this be a token of friendship or an initiation ritual?
Maybe I dig to deep. I did decline the salmon several times. She could have been offended on a symbolic level. Maybe she just wanted to feed me, like a mother feeding porridge to a child. Or that she wanted her effort appreciated. It will cost rather more fish lives to understand this.
Jan Ploeg, B&B 'Dún na Rí', Lahinch, September 14th 2003
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