Dolphins Have Names

So it turns out that dolphins name each other. Not regular human names like “Bob” or “Alfred,” but specialized whistles issued for each dolphin specifically. Names like “EeeeA-A-A-Ak” and “EreEeeEeeeeEp.” Except echoey and underwater. Neither moniker has the same grandeur as a name like “Gatsby,” but they’re still less irritating than when hippies name their children after rainbows or strains of cannabis. And the overall point is: dolphins have unique, individual personalities and identify each other by name.

I already knew the bit about personalities from first-hand experience: my first job was at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

My so-called friend Andrew Young and I worked there one summer during high school. At first they paired us together at various visitors services locations, renting out strollers and golf carts or manning the gift shop. However Young and I flouted the authority of our immediate supervisors whenever we had the same shift, so eventually they split us up.

Our escapades included a time Young stole a golf cart and took me joy riding all the way to the gazelle habitat on the other side of the zoo, a three week period in which he somehow jerry-rigged the cash registers to use Internet Explorer so we could screw around on the web and play online poker, and finally a daily routine of sending the meerkat colony into hysterics by wandering over during our lunch break to make hawk noises.

After the second or third reprimand about frightening the meerkats they separated us. Young got relegated to renting strollers, and I became the zoo’s carousel operator. Overall it was an easy gig: I polished the gleaming brass poles of the whirly gig every morning, then afterwards sat around for hours periodically selling tickets to visitors and trying to figure out how to accelerate the thing fast enough to fling children into bushes. I never managed to dislodge any kids, but I did get paid to spend a lot of time riding a carousel reading Isaac Asimov novels in between my attempts.

About once a week they assigned me to Dolphin Show crowd control. The Dolphin Show included several sea lions, which was the real reason they needed me. Sea lions have blurry vision, they’re startled by sudden movement and they think human fingers look like shrimp. Letting children anywhere near sea lions is a good way to hobble budding pianists. So my job was to grab runaway children as they ran down the stairs towards the pool and then hold them captive until after the show.

Then I got to hang out with the dolphins. At the time we had two: Terri and Sandy. After the show the trainers would let me play catch with the dolphins using a toy basketball. I’d toss it into the pool, and one of the two porpoises would squeeze its jaws shut and launch it back at me. Eventually a supervisor would recall me to the carousel, and the dolphins would disappear beneath the water.

Over the course of the summer I got to know the trainers and the dolphins themselves. The trainers were amazingly nice– they would invite me back into the aquatic facilities where the animals lived, loaned me books about dolphins, and answered all of my marine mammal questions. They even supplied interesting dolphin gossip. For instance, Terri and Sandy were both females, and had taken to using a pool toy shaped like a miniature baseball bat as a dildo. (This is important. It being Oklahoma, if they had turned out to be lesbian dolphins the State Legislature would have had them shot.) Needless to say, the realization that dolphins masturbate was a boundless source of intellectual wonder to a seventeen-year-old boy.

I got to know the dolphins as well. I could identity Sandy by the three light scratch marks barely visible on her forehead; teeth marks from some prior roughhousing. Sandy was more extroverted than Terri, but likewise prone to pouting and mood swings.

For instance, when we played catch, sometimes Sandy would spit the ball back at me but use insufficient force. The ball would bounce off of the pool railing and glance off Sandy’s forehead. Sandy would then icily stare at me for a few moments, then punish me by turning her back and slowly ambling towards the other side of the pool, where she would sulk until I eventually gave up and left.

That dolphin damn well knew she screwed up her throw. I know it sounds crazy, but I tossed the ball often enough with the animal that I can tell you in such instances Sandy was embarrassed at her poor athletic abilities and would basically lie about it by pretending that I had thrown the ball at her. It was kind of funny, but also rather irritating, because you can’t argue with dolphins. They submerge if you start trying to rationalize with them. I am a dog lover, and have had many emotionally poignant experiences with beagles and Labrador retrievers, but my brief interactions with Sandy and Terri were entirely different. Dolphins are intelligent. They have unique personalities.

And, apparently, names.

By the end of the this century I hope we will stop thinking of the Earth as “mankind” and “everything else.” As we learn more about the universe and our role in it, I suspect we’ll see the animal world as a continuum, with elephants, apes and dolphins much nearer to humans than either are to meerkats. Hopefully one day we’ll establish some basic rights for creatures capable of sign language, reasoning or love.

Think about that next time you’re purchasing tuna. Always buy dolphin safe brands.

Dolphins are pretty smart. So far none of them have voted for Rick Santorum.