A THOUSAND YEAR OLD DREAM MAY SOON COME TRUE Dolphins have a unique ability of communicating with one another.
Their special kinship with humans is also well documented. Numerous tales about how
dolphins have come to the rescue of men at sea or their spontaneous dose encounters with swimmers near shore attest to this.
Perhaps they''''re trying to tell us something?
At Sweden''''s Kolm3.rden Animal Park, researcher Mats Amundin is engaged in a project that may enable tiS to understand more about how dolphins live, and above all, more about their "
language:".
Kolmarden’s Dolphinarium is unique in many ways. Among other things, several dolphin calves have been raised there. Venus and Sisu were bom in 19E3, and since then their language development has been c10sely monitored.
During their early years, they protested in a curious way when their mother left them momentarily to feed at poolside. The mother listened very calmly to their squeals, almost with indifference. Then suddenly, in an apparent response to something one of them had "said", she flashed over to rejoin him. To the human ear, however, no change in the sound could be detected. Apparently, very slight nuances in a dolphin''''s sounds can mean a lot.
Man still knows very little about the "language" of dolphins. But the research work continues. Who knows, perhaps one day we’ll find out what dolphins really think about us.
Scanorama (June, 1987).
By Fausto Fabio de Araujo