How dolphins enchant scientist

Diana Reiss with their hearts and minds

The dolphin research of Diana Reiss began in France with her first contact with a dolphin she named Circe, after the female sorceress from Greek mythology. The following are excerpts from a podcast with Shawn Thompson on The Old Curiosity Podcast.

Shawn Thompson: With this dolphin Circe, what did the relationship mean to you as a human being? You use the words closely bonded. You use the word wonder. What did the relationship mean to you? What did it feel like? 

Diana Reiss: It felt like a relationship that you would have with another, whether it's your spouse, your child, your your pet dog. It's another mind. And, in this particular case, this mind is a very intelligent mind. So, I watched her, I interacted with her and I watched things she would do and then I tried to find ways of partnering with her rather than just simply testing her. It was very hard not to bond with this animal and the other dolphins there as well, but Circe was the one I was primarily working with. 

Shawn Thompson: I don't know if we actually have a word to describe this relationship. We're falling back on relationship words like marriage, friendship, children, whatever. 

Diana Reiss: I have a word I would suggest: it would be almost enchantment. 

Shawn Thompson: Enchantment. And what does that word mean for you in terms of a relationship? 

Diana Reiss: It means an awareness, an appreciation, a strong feeling of admiration.

[Reiss recalls the story of a six-year-old boy named Elián González who was escaping from Cuba to the United States and was cast adrift in the ocean.] 

This child was hanging on, it was off the coast of Florida, this child was hanging on to an inner tube or some kind of life preserver. The child said he was saved by dolphins and the dolphins stayed with him until the rescue boat came.  The young boy said that as he would slip from this float, the dolphins would push him back onto it. What does that mean? That means they have some understanding of what the situation is, and they are helping. So that shows some altruism, empathy. 

And I think that's why the ancient Greeks may have been in awe of dolphins. They talked about them as they were intelligent. Because they observed them, they were at sea with them. Much the way we see these dolphins bow riding on our boats. People love this. It it engages us. It enchants us. 

[Reiss recalls an incident where she helped turn back to the ocean a humpback whale name Humphrey who had gone astray and left the ocean to enter the Sacramento River at San Francisco, California.]

[With] marine mammals, whether it's humpback whales, whether it's grey whales, whether it's dolphins, they show this propensity to be curious and to be friendly, as we often call them, like the friendly grey whales. And I think these are big brained, highly social mammals that are curious. And we see it by them coming to our boat, looking up at us. If we're in the water, they'll often come over. They'll come close to you with your eye or watch from a distance. 

And you know, we see this this kind of looking and gazing and approaching. And I think that's a very interesting way of thinking about curiosity. They seemed to be interested in learning more about us. 

[Humphrey the whale] found our boat and he pushed his belly against the side of our boat, this big humpback, and looked up at us with this big wet eye. And those of us on the boat who had been involved in the rescue had included, government officials, we all looked back with really wet eyes. We were all just crying. 

And we all felt that this whale understood something about what we tried to do, that we were there to help him. And at the time I thought, wow, did he really, did he really even though it felt like that, you know, am I being too soft on this? Am I overinterpreting this? And that would suggest he had some theory of mind or some sense of empathy.  At that time we hadn't heard these stories coming in about whales, about humpbacks, showing possible empathy. 

Finally, I'll just say this, that one of the things that I think marks perhaps the way I work is I try to partner with the dolphins. If I'm working with a dolphin or an elephant, I try to give them a voice and try to see what they'll do, what their ways are, rather than training them to do things or asking them to do certain things. I give them things to see reflections of their minds and their types of intelligence. 

See the full, four-part podcast with Diana Reiss at The Old Curiosity Podcast on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@theoldcuriositypodcast