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Welcome to my Dolphin page. Special thanks to my online friend Brianna for the painting above and the background.
Along with kangaroos, I have spent a large part of my life studying dolphins - their physiology, behavioral traits and habits, and the history of their evolution. I share a common dream with many people - to one day swim with dolphins in the wild. (Brianna wants me to go to Australia and go swimming with her at some point - I'd love to, but how do I get down there? :)
I vastly enjoy reading stories and poetry about dolphins. I even wrote the beginnings of my own story that was meant to describe how my character, Dorsola, came to be. Although I've since abandoned the story, you can still read it here. It ties together several dreams that I've had in the past, involving a circle of dolphins in the open ocean and an entire world coming to an abrupt end.
As stated on my About Me Page, my online alias is Dorsola, a male dolphin from another world. For a very large part of my life, however, I used to regard kangaroos as my favorite animals. In fact, before I became Dorsola, I was known as Joey McKangaroo, and people online knew me simply as Kangaroo. Joey was a young and often childish and silly kangaroo who had a hard time making friends - a child among adults, a personality that became widely unaccepted both on and off the Internet.
When I moved to Cal Poly, I brought Joey with me, but as life went on, I gradually moved to a much more mature, patient, sympathetic and still-fun-loving personality. About this time in my life, my interest in dolphins was sparked by a very nice poster that I found in a comic-book shop during the first week of school. I recalled the sketch I'd drawn several years back, of a science-fiction role-playing character named Dorsola. I didn't really develop him too much back then, but I looked back at my drawing and said to myself, "That really fits." Since then, I've been known as Dorsola the Dolphin.
I like to think of myself as a dolphin at times. They are really remarkable animals, and they deserve all of the hype and attention that they receive. Although I've never actually interacted with them, I've seen them in the wild and believe me, they are completely different there than at any theme park. When I went to Catalina Island in March of '96, we encountered a pod of dolphins that came right up to our ferry! It was wonderful to be able to watch them jumping around in the water, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The picture at right is actually from that trip. :)
The experience I've always wanted to have, though, is to be snorkeling (or better yet, scuba diving) in warm water. I'd be swimming around, following the fish around, when all of a sudden I'd notice a dolphin in front of me, about ten feet away, just floating there watching me. We'd be in complete silence, just looking at each other for a few minutes, everything else taking a back burner for the moment. That, more than anything else, would be something special - a dream come true for me.
Shortly after putting this page up, I stumbled across some old poetry and other creative-writing stuff that I'd written a couple of years ago, which included this excerpt:
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A pod of dolphins is a frolic of nature, an organization of chaotic joy. Each dolphin, in his or her own way, is unique and happy. Were it not for the brotherhood of the pod, each dolphin would go free on their own to experience their own joy. But then, there would be no joy, for the joy comes from the brotherhood. In turn, each pod is not an individual, but they commune with one another. At times, two pods will become one, then separate again. Nor is the brotherhood confined to the dolphins themselves, for they love to commune with aliens. Alien to their species, that is, humans and other land creatures, as well as fish and other sea mammals. One dolphin says to me, "You. You are not like me. You are alien, yet... you are not so alien." He seems to look deep into my being, past the body, past even the mind, straight into my soul. There he finds the mark of eternal brotherhood, that which transcends the limitations of all species. Then he swims around me in circles, chirping and whistling with joy, having found one who, in being different, is the same. Then suddenly do I realize how things that are different are the same. The joy comes in our differences, in comparison and contrast. Then do I join the frolic of nature. |
I don't know if the stories about being able to communicate with dolphins (as in, understanding their words and thoughts, whether by telepathy or by other means) are true. People who have swum with dolphins sometimes claim that they've talked with them, that they've been accepted into (or been rejected from) another culture, that it was perfectly clear to them what the dolphin was thinking, what he/she wanted, etc... These claims, among other things, have sparked thousands of discussions and debates about how dolphin intelligence compares to that of humans. The scientific field has sought to research their intelligence. The political sphere is still debating as to whether or not it should be actively involved in protecting dolphins from tuna nets and hunting. And the worldwide community in general is still debating as to whether dolphins are as intelligent, or perhaps more intelligent, than humans.
Along the lines of intelligence, I prefer to think of them as intelligent, but I don't like to say that they're as intelligent or more intelligent than we are. Someone on the alt.animals.dolphins newsgroup a while back pointed out that dolphins, despite hundreds of millions of years of evolution, have "still not developed complex social structures, discovered basic farming, etc..." Many religious and political debates about human superiority come into play, too. I, however, prefer the viewpoint that dolphins really don't need all of these things that humans have created - they don't have a use for cars, houses, computers, farming equipment, etc... they're naturally equipped with and surrounded by all the tools they would ever need, and research studies have shown that they know how to use their environment to their advantage.
Whenever we, as humans, start comparing the intelligence of other animals to that of our own, whether favorably or not, I can't help but think of us as proud and arrogant. According to the Bible, we were given dominion over all the creatures of the earth, and that can be taken to mean almost anything. Evolution indicates that we have adapted to our respective environments about the same as the animals around us. What makes us more intelligent than any other animal? Why is it that dolphins get so much attention as being intelligent (perhaps more so than us), when there are other animals out there who have also adapted to their environments and have learned how to exist there?
I personally believe that intelligence is (or should be) the measure of one's capability to use their abilities and resources to their fullest advantage. Obviously, this means different things for different animals and in different environments. This also means that animal intelligence in general cannot and must not be compared to that of humans.
This page is dedicated to dolphin lovers worldwide.
