Other people are already collecting records of cetacean sightings in general in Ireland: the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group maintains it own database and submits summaries to the Sea Watch Foundation in Oxford, England, which collates records on a European basis. They also publish interesting findings in the Irish Naturalists’ Journal and in the Wild Ireland magazine.

Our own focus, however, is on those cetaceans which particularly seek out human company. In Irish and European waters at this time, that means in effect bottlenose dolphins. In general these are ‘solitary’ animals, which are going against the normal pattern of their species by living alone and in a restricted area. Bottlenose dolphins as a rule are highly gregarious and active animals, living in family groups sometimes known as pods and roaming over wide stretches of our coastal waters. Partial exceptions to the latter rule are the resident populations in the Shannon estuary, the Moray Firth in Scotland and Cardigan Bay in Wales, which are seen very regularly within quite tightly defined areas. These may in fact represent remnants of much larger populations that have become confined by human activities to relatively small home ranges, and we have some evidence that also suggests both temporary and permanent movements into and out of the core areas, at least in the case of the Shannon. The gregariousness of bottlenose dolphins, however, remains very much the rule, and they are very rarely seen alone.

Solitary and ‘stationary’ dolphins therefore already represent an anomaly, and a very rare one in terms of the general dolphin population, even before they start interacting with humans. All dolphins tend to bow-ride boats which are going the way they want to go and in this sense may be said to associate with human beings. In some parts of the world, dolphins may also feed in association with human fishing activity. Solitary or ‘sociable’ dolphins, however, are distinguished by seeking out human activities which appear to have no benefit to them, and which in fact very often put them into serious risk of ill health or injury. They may follow powered pleasure craft very closely, even when driven randomly or in circles, they may swim into shallow and polluted waters in harbours or river estuaries, and most conspicuously of all, they may approach human swimmers and divers and even allow people to touch them. All of these interactions are most definitely not normal for wild dolphins. ‘Normal’ wild dolphins may indeed approach divers or swimmers out of curiosity but nearly always pass by underwater and well out of reach.

It appears that over the last 30 years there have been more and more cases of human-dolphin interactions. In Ireland especially, the trend has been dramatic over the last five years, with up to 4 actively interacting solo dolphins in the country at a time. We don’t believe that this trend can entirely be accounted for by greater human awareness or better reporting of incidents, though the rise in watersports such as scuba diving and surfing and the much wider availability and use of wetsuits associated with this development has doubtless played a role. But there seems to be no getting away from the fact that, for whatever reason, in this part of the world at least, more dolphins are making contact with more people. This has extended also to members of fully ‘normal’ wild pods of bottlenose dolphins, who in numerous incidents have made deliberate close approaches to people in the water, as well in boats; we have been lucky enough to enjoy many such encounters in Dingle Bay ourselves.

The scientific community, by and large, is not interested in solitary dolphins, and especially not when they become media celebrities, precisely because these animals are atypical of the species as a whole. The leading international marine mammal on-line discussion group, MARMAM, specifically forbids mention of human-dolphin interactions in its forum (except if this takes place within a dolphinarium!). Another major forum, the European Cetacean Society, treats the sociable dolphin phenomenon only from the point of view of it being a threat to dolphins. Whilst we agree that interactive dolphins are in many ways aberrant in terms of the species as a whole, we think it absurd to conclude from this that we cannot learn much of value from studying them – even much of value in conventional biological terms. (To take a simple example, our tracking of Dony the Dunquin dolphin on his thousands of kilometres-long odyssey to France and England in 2001, which was possible only because of his exceptionally interactive behaviour, effectively shattered previous assumptions about bottlenose dolphins’ ranging behaviour and set vastly increased new upper limits to the size of ranges which must in future be defined in relation to any proposed conservation measures). Nevertheless, very few marine biologists will yet go on record, whatever they privately believe, as saying that we could learn something from swimming with interactive wild dolphins – let alone that they might actually enjoy the experience themselves!

This theme extends also to the spokespeople for most of the main dolphin conservation groups. Often they are driven by a genuine love for dolphins and desire to hang out with them. Why else, indeed, would they be so motivated as to spend many hours each week of their time unpaid in observing dolphins and promoting their appreciation and protection? However, the voluntary conservationists are rarely academics or otherwise qualified themselves and are often anxious to seek the approval and co-operation of the ‘official’ experts, so they tend to sound more distant, more ‘scientific’ and less involved emotionally than they really are. At the same time there is a certain kudos and authority which comes from being the person to whom the local media turn for quotes when a friendly dolphin turns up in one’s local area, not to mention from sitting on ‘management committees’ and ‘steering groups’ along with the academics, harbour authorities, local police etc, and there can also be grants available to those who know the right people and sing from the right hymn sheet. As a result, the conservation groups follow the lead of the academics and condemn people like us who actually admit to going in swimming with them (even if they privately do the same themselves)!

Gérard Mauger of the (GECC)group based in Cherbourg, France, which efficiently plotted the movements of Dony when he was in the Normandy area in the winter of 2001 and effectively ‘took charge of’ him during that period, has been quoted in the summer 2003 edition of the magazine ‘Ca m’intéresse’ as saying that „it is essential that the dolphin’s ties with human beings should be broken” – implying that people should on no account attempt to swim with him or approach him. The laudable idea behind this declaration, and similar ones which were made by various UK groups when Dony was in England in 2002, is that wild animals should stay wild and not become ‘tamed’ by human intervention, lest it eventually limits their fitness to survive in their natural social environment. Unfortunately this concept, no doubt eminently applicable to a fox or a seagull, does not transfer well to the extraordinary case of solitary dolphins which choose to approach and associate with human beings, even though they are capable of associating with their own kind if and when they choose to. These dolphins are not being tamed, whether by food rewards, by raising from infancy or after incapacity due to injury (which are the usual scenarios when a wild animal becomes tamed); they remain totally wild, free and unpredictable throughout the process. Many scientifically-minded commentators seem unable to think out of the box when faced with the admittedly extraordinary situation of a ‘friendly’ wild carnivore, and fail to appreciate that these dolphins are versatile and resourceful enough to live and to thrive on their own terms, with or without the back-up of the social system they were born into. In the numerous histories of solitary and human-interactive dolphins which we have now collected, the final chapters have remained blank after the eventual disappearance of the dolphin, and there is absolutely no scientific evidence or reason to suggest that the dolphins in question have not rejoined their normal social groups when the time was right for them. In the meantime it is arrogant to suggest that we know better than they do what is right for them, and dictatorial to tell other people that they should not respond to the dolphins’ invitation of friendship.

In this respect, we feel the scientific and conservation community is out of step with the general public, who are obviously sold on the idea of dolphins in general and especially on getting as close to them as possible. They are also missing a great opportunity to advance our knowledge and understanding of both cetaceans and humans. By opting out of the debate about human-cetacean interactions, scientists merely leave the field clear for the adherents of the ‘messengers from the Pleiades come to save the world’ school of thought!

Sooner or later, a cross-disciplinary approach will evolve within the rigid hierarchies of academia, and marine biologists will get together with anthropologists, psychologists, naturalists and social scientists to begin to unravel one of the most fascinating mysteries of the natural world, the ‘friendly’ dolphin phenomenon. When that day happens, we hope that the information collected on this website will be useful. In the meantime we are happy to remain a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs who are having a lot of fun at the same time as trying to figure out for ourselves what is going on here. We hope that this website will not only provide useful and clear information, but will give a glimpse of both the enjoyment and the wonder which grips everyone who gets close to a wild cetacean.