Zeus & Roxanne

A family's adventurous dog boldly sets out to discover the neighbourhood, spending time at the calm peaceful beach and chasing cats should they manifest themselves.

His owners take the arts seriously and spend most of their free time engaged, dad writing songs for commercial media while his son photographs whatever he can.

They're vacationing in a rented house across the laidback street from a marine biologist, who's trying to encourage a domesticated dolphin to cohesively rejoin a wild pod at sea.

The dog mischievously follows her one day and even boards her seafaring vessel, where that very same convalescing dolphin serendipitously takes a shine to his daring.

They become friends and their innocent curiosity freely demonstrates interspecies communication, the marine biologist's related grant proposal hoping to study the compelling phenomenon. 

But will dolphin and dog also lay the foundation for a long-lasting humanoid relationship?

Arts & Science zoologically orchestrating.

The chillaxed romantic life.

Animals clearly have built in recognition and know when they're interacting with other members of the same species, and they do so without mirrors or schools it's fruitfully learned in the forest or valley.

They also largely stick to themselves although you see modest interspecies contact at times, notably when food is abundant and everyone's relaxed and less stressed accordingly. 

On the African savannah wildebeest, zebras, water buffalo and gazelles, broadly mingle and affably interact as the seasons change and the migration flows for instance.

I firmly believe interspecies communication is possible under the right accommodating conditions, if the animals are brought up together as babies in a loving environment with lots of food.

Even cats and dogs perhaps seals and penguins can learn to trust one another under such circumstances, as my pet bunny and his friend the guinea pig learned to do so many years ago.

This strategy will likely work more effectively when less testosterone is worked into the mix.

Wild bulls so likely to struggle and fight.

Like the rabbit my dad threw over the fence when I was a child (he was a really mean bunny). 

I was watching a scuba-diver hanging out with some humpback whales on Instagram the other day, and I suddenly wondered: do whales think we're angels? 

I often think whales have similar belief systems to our own because they have massive brains. Not that the size of the brain matters, bees seem to be quite intelligent too, but I can't imagine something with that colossal of a brain not being capable of considering things like the afterlife. 

And then snorkelers and scuba-divers just suddenly show up from above the water's surface, a place where they can't go (for long) and wave and potentially hug them, and then disappear, perhaps never to be seen again! 

Could such behaviour be traditionally mistaken for the emergence of angels?

When whales beach themselves, I often think a rogue demagogue whale has convinced them that they can live on the surface, and they foolishly follow his lead, like preachers warning about the end of the world, and their congregation stockpiling canned goods in turn. 

If they do think we're angels, I hope they never make it to the surface, for they may not like what they find. 🗽

Another reason I think this point may be valid is that whales and dolphins have odd sleeping habits. As far as I know, half of their brains are always awake, only half of a whale or dolphin brain sleeps at one time. This introduces a big difference between our species because our entire brain shuts off when we sleep, preventing the onset of psychosis (I hate it when I don't get enough sleep [all of my worst job experiences were ones that kept me up 20 hours a day]).

At least, I wonder why animals as intelligent as dolphins keep returning to areas where humans slaughter them every year. Why wouldn't an intelligent animal simply avoid the hunt and go somewhere else? Answer: they can't remember things well enough because their brains never fully shut down.

Thoughts. 🐋🐬 🧠

The dolphin is my go-to animal emoji.

Pitch

Chillin' helicoptric fathom
spiral evanescent chasm
channelled scant illumination
waves presuming inundation

coralic the dolphin's eye
echoes reputed visualized
the pod surfwise detecting rhythms
orchestrated imprecision

innate style collective movement
versatile pronounced attunements
metronomic fluid shuffle
interplanetary ruffles

so I've heard or so they say
their secrets stashed in ancient shades
but still a written language taunts
non-linear abstracted haunts

vortex.

Someone in Japan should make a children's book about a dolphin who can't hold his breath underwater for very long and is shunned by the other dolphins consequently.

Later, he becomes instrumental in spotting fishing boats intent on killing them.

After that, he or she is loved by all.

Potential title: Rudolph the Bottlenose Dolphin.

An instant bestseller!

*Not necessarily an instant bestseller.

Dolphin Tale

Dolphins, swimming around, investigating things, discussing various topics, demonstrating interest, responding playfully, gregarious and cheerful, mischievous, resilient, diligent, ebullient. I've always enjoyed watching dolphins go about their dolphin related business and Charles Martin Smith's Dolphin Tale provides plenty of dolphin focused activity.

There's just one problem.

Winter, the dolphin about whom this tale is told, has had to have her tail removed after complications resulting from being entangled in a crab trap. The Clearwater Marine Hospital is dedicated to her rehabilitation, but after she learns to swim by moving her back from side to side instead of up and down (as she would had she a tail), it becomes apparent that her spinal cord won't be able to withstand the unnatural movement, meaning her future is in jeopardy.

Enter Sawyer Nelson (Nathan Gamble), the boy who helped save Winter from the crab trap. Winter takes a shine to Sawyer and responds more positively to his care than to that of her other attendants. Sawyer's cousin (Austin Stowell as Kyle Connellan) unfortunately has his legs damaged in an explosion which sends him to a hospital specializing in prosthetics.

Which gives Sawyer an idea.

Perhaps a prosthetic tail can be made for pesky Winter, thereby saving her spinal chord and ensuring that she will be able to swim till an old age.

Will this tail be ready in order to showcase Winter at an event designed to raise funds to prevent the Clearwater Marine Hospital from being sold to a corporation and turned into a hotel?

Only time will tell.

Watching the film will also tell, and if you want to see a somewhat cheesy yet inspiring and uplifting story wherein a shy disengaged youth learns to make friends and become a contributing community member (even though he has no love for prepositional phrases), full of plenty of exciting shots of a dolphin who won't let things like not having a tail keep her down, Dolphin Tale is for you. And even though there are two single parent families within and their children become good friends, the father and mother don't establish a romantic relationship, which is where I thought the script was headed.

To learn more about the Clearwater Marine Hospital Aquarium and follow Winter's adventures, visit here.

The Cove

Evidence within Louie Psihoyo's The Cove proves that dolphins are being slaughtered by the thousands in Taijii, Japan, each year. Beginning in September and lasting until March, fisherpeople within Taijii coral herds of dolphins in an isolated cove in order to sell them to the dolphin entertainment industry. But the leftover dolphins aren't released, they're killed for their highly toxic meat which is then sold to the Japanese population, often labelled as something different. In The Cove, a group of environmentalists, many associated with the Oceanic Preservation and Sea Shepherd Conservation Societies, resolutely fight to find a way to photograph the killing, risking imprisonment, and, according to dolphin rights activist Ric O'Barry, death, to obtain their footage. While the dolphin industry in Taijii is the principal focus of the film, other subjects include the problems associated with the International Whaling Commission, the reasons why many feel justified in hunting whales and dolphins, the ways in which the Japanese whaling lobby is buying support for their cause, and the general characteristics of dolphins themselves. As a meat eater, I feel that if I generally condemn those concerned with this business I'll come off sounding like a hypocrite, so I'll qualify my condemnation by saying that I generally support the eating of farmed meat, because farmers are usually concerned with maintaining healthy marketable populations of their commodities, not slaughtering wild populations that will have difficulty maintaining their present numbers. At the same time, I find the idea of dolphin farms to be incredibly cruel, almost as cruel as the bear farms which suck bile from a bear's gall bladder periodically throughout the day (or the ways in which chicken wings are produced, or . . . ). But I'm sure the cattle industry looks pretty horrible to the majority of Hindus so I can't judge their cultural traits seriously without first turning that lens inwards. The film explores Japan's relationship with whaling from a predominantly critical angle, which seems justified considering that populations take long periods of time to reestablish themselves. Hunting whales and dolphins because they eat fish is somewhat ridiculous, as is selling their mercury laden meat to consumers (imagine eating the belugas out of the St. Lawrence). All in all, I highly commend the courage and tenacity maintained by those responsible for creating The Cove, for their commitment demonstrates that it is possible to affect social change and constructively challenge the powers that be.