The Dolphin in the Mirror

by Diana Reiss

  Sea otters also have an impressive variety of foraging practices, but they do not engage in the more cognitively demanding cooperative-feeding techniques. The degree of behavioral diversity in dolphins, including cooperative ventures, speaks of extensive behavioral flexibility rather than genetic hard-wiring. Dolphins are capable of such a large repertoire because they possess active minds. They can adapt, and they can innovate.

  For dolphins, as for people, active social learning is key to individual and community success.

  ***

  Deception is also a form of manipulation, but of other individuals rather than of the physical environment. Playing mental tricks on others and being the target of such tricks oneself is a common experience of human life. (It is sometimes called politics!) It is rare among animals. Three decades ago, Andrew Whiten and Richard Byrne at Scotland's University of St. Andrews surveyed fellow primatologists in search of instances of deception among apes. For one animal to be able to deceive another, it must have some idea of how its own behavior is seen by the other. To put it in lofty theoretical terms, the animal must possess some semblance of theory of mind—i.e., it must be able to put itself in the mind of the other. Deception, where it does occur, is likely to be a rare behavior, by its very nature; you can't cry wolf too often, or it won't work. Not surprisingly, Whiten and Byrne's survey turned up just a handful of credible instances of deception, and most of these were in the higher end of primate intelligence, among chimpanzees and a few large Old-World monkeys and baboons. They collected these instances in a book, Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans, published in 1988.

  But even when a good example seems to be at hand, it can be almost impossible to know how intentional the deception is. I'll give an incident that Whiten and Byrne saw themselves, which was actually what prompted them to survey their colleagues. In the early 1980s, Whiten and Byrne were observing the foraging behavior of chacma baboons in the Drakensberg Mountains in southern Africa. An adult female, Mel, was digging in the ground, trying to unearth a tasty tuber. Paul, a young male and a member of Mel's group, approached the busy baboon, looked around, and saw that there were no other baboons nearby. Suddenly, he let out a piercing yell, as if he were under attack. Paul's mother, who had been near but out of sight, came bounding over and chased Mel from the scene. When she saw that Paul was safe, she ambled off, probably to return to her previous activity. Now that he was alone, Paul walked over to where Mel had been digging and pulled out the bulb, which he calmly ate. Without Mel's previous excavation efforts, Paul would not have been able to dig up the bulb himself.14

  On the face of it, Paul had just pulled off a successful deception. But did Paul really reason that if he let out a frightened yell, his mother would believe he was under attack, rush to his aid, and scare Mel away, thus leaving the bulb for him to eat? Or had he simply learned that if he yelled under these particular circumstances, he would end up with a bulb? It is impossible to say for sure. Yet overall, Whiten and Byrne's book contains enough credible examples of tactical deception to suggest that higher primates are capable of putting themselves in others' minds, turning what is usually an honest behavior into a dishonest one, and profiting from the experience.

  As far as I am aware, no one has seen an example of tactical deception in dolphins and whales in wild populations. But I do know of examples of possible deception by dolphins in an aquarium setting in which the duped individuals are not other dolphins but human beings.

  The first example, which achieved some notoriety in the dolphin-research world, occurred at Marine World in Redwood City a few years before I arrived there. Jim Mullen was chief trainer of the dolphins, and it was he who told me the story. Before he started working at Aquarama, Jim could be heard on street corners in South Philadelphia singing baritone with the 4 Epics, a rock 'n' roll group of the type that was common in the fifties and sixties. Despite a tantalizing recording contract with a famous New York company, commercial prospects for the group were not promising, and so Jim chose aquarium work instead, eventually becoming a very good dolphin trainer and an amiable colleague. (He also entertained us from time to time with some of his favorite oldies.)

  One practice that Jim started soon after he joined Marine World in 1973 was to encourage the dolphins to tidy up their pool at the end of the day, training them with a reward of fish for each piece of litter they brought to him. "It worked very well," Jim told me. "The pool was kept neat and clean, and the dolphins seemed to enjoy the game." Then one day in the summer of 1978, Spock, always an enthusiastic litter collector, seemed to be especially diligent, taking piece after piece of brown paper to Jim. (Spock had been so named by an earlier trainer, an avid Trekkie.) Spock was rewarded with a fish each time he arrived with another piece of the brown paper. This continued for a while: more pieces of brown paper; more fish; very rewarded. Pretty soon Jim became suspicious, wondering where all these pieces of brown paper were coming from. He asked one of his assistants to go below and look through the pool windows to find out where Spock was getting the paper.

  "It turned out that there was a brown paper bag lodged behind an inlet pipe," Jim told me. "Spock went to the paper bag, tore a piece off, and brought it to me. I then gave Spock a fish, as per our arrangement, and back he went. The second time my assistant saw Spock go to the paper bag, Spock pulled at it to remove a piece, but the whole bag came out. Spock promptly shoved the bag back into place, tore a small piece off, and brought it to me. He knew what he was doing, I'm sure. He completely had me." Spock's behavior looks very much like deliberate deception, because he hadn't been trained to take small pieces of litter to Jim and then be rewarded. He had been trained to collect any piece of litter and take that to Jim. By repeatedly tearing off small parts of the bag, Spock certainly maximized his reward. And when he pushed the bag back behind the pipe when it came out in one piece, that certainly had the ring of deliberate action. Whether you can call it deliberate deception is a tough call.

  ***

  Here's a second example of possible deception, again at Redwood City, early in our exploration of keyboard skills. This was in 1984, when Delphi and Pan were just one year old. We had created arbitrary sounds with acoustic characteristics similar to dolphin whistles that would be specific for each dolphin, their whistle names, if you will. The way we did this was quite simple in structure, but it required each young dolphin to pay attention to the sounds we projected from an underwater loudspeaker, learn which was his sound, and then come to a specific station, his station, when he heard it. There was an underwater microphone, a hydrophone, near the speaker so we would be able to hear the dolphins' sounds too. If Delphi or Pan came to station when the other's sound had been played, I turned my back on him, like a time-out, to indicate that he had responded incorrectly. When the correct one came after we had played his sound, I rewarded him with a fish.

  Delphi and Pan caught on very quickly, within a day or so each one coming to station only when his own sound had been played. About a week into this process, we were setting up for a session. I was at poolside, wearing headphones and carrying the control box from which I could activate the appropriate sounds. Bruce Silverman, my research assistant, also had headphones and a control box. We could talk to each other by intercom to coordinate our actions. I was just about ready to begin when I suddenly heard Delphi's sound in my headphones. I looked up and could see Delphi over by the speaker and hydrophone, eagerly on his way to his station. Bruce and I knew that I would initiate the session by using Delphi's sound key, but I hadn't touched it. Hmm, I thought, Bruce must have forgotten and gone ahead and pressed Delphi's key. I called to him and asked if that's what had happened. "No," he told me, "I haven't touched any key." I looked over at Delphi, who was by now at his station, mouth wide open, ready for a fish. I think Delphi had made his own sound over there by the speaker and then come for his reward.

  Was Delphi trying to deceive us, trying to get a rewar
d by manipulating the system? Not in the true sense, because we knew we hadn't pressed his sound key, but he had gone through all the motions as if we had. These animals are very smart at figuring out contingencies. In this case, Delphi may have thought something along the lines of If I go over there by the speaker and my sound is made, then I can go to my station and get a fish. He knew the rules of the game and had manipulated, or tested, them to his advantage. That's the basis of deception. And this time I gave him a fish!

  Not long after the lab had been moved to the new site in Vallejo, Delphi seemed to have pulled another trick on me, and this time he really did fool me. In the wild, dolphins have to chase and catch their prey; we can't have them do that in an aquarium, for obvious practical reasons. But to make the feeding process as naturalistic as possible and hopefully more fun for the dolphins, we threw the fish out into the pool so the dolphins could chase them down. It worked very well, and Delphi in particular seemed to enjoy the game. One day my new lab manager and research assistant Laura Edenborough came to me and said, "Delphi is dropping fish all over the place. He's holding a lot of fish in his mouth, playing with them, and then dropping them. It's getting to be a husbandry problem, and there are a lot of fish lying on the bottom of the pool."

  As I mentioned before, because Delphi was Circe's son, in some strange way I felt like he was my grandchild. I loved to feed him. So I sat by the edge of the pool, my booted feet on a little ledge. I indicated to Delphi that he should come over, which he did with his usual greeting display, and I played with him a bit. I turned to Laura and said, "All right, now I'm going to say to Delphi, ‘Swallow it.' I'm going to give him a fish and say, ‘Swallow it.' He doesn't know what ‘Swallow it' means, but just use it as a mark or signal and he will learn to swallow the fish. When you see him swallow and look into his mouth and you don't see a fish, give him another one." I carefully went through this little regimen I had just described, and Delphi cooperated perfectly. He ate all the fish, and didn't drop any. Laura took over for the next several feeding sessions and all seemed back to normal—or so I thought.

  After about a week with Laura and other students successfully feeding Delphi in this manner, I decided that I would do another feeding session. I stationed myself at the side of the pool and signaled for Delphi to come over. He did, and we spent a few minutes together. I rubbed him, and he volunteered his tail to be pulled, one of his favorite dolphin-human activities. Then I started giving him one fish at a time, waiting for him to swallow each before giving another. The session seemed to be going smoothly, but then I noticed that Delphi was making exaggerated swallows as I gave him each fish. When he opened his mouth after each swallow, there was no fish to be seen, so I gave him another one. Each fish was swallowed with a very big gulp. I had never seen him, or any of the dolphins, do that. I thought perhaps he had a sore throat that made swallowing uncomfortable. I gave him a couple more fish. More exaggerated gulps, more views of his empty mouth.

  All of a sudden, Delphi's eyes got really big, the way they do when the dolphins are excited. Delphi opened his mouth, and I saw all these whole fish in there. He must have been holding them in his throat or had regurgitated them. Before I had time to open my mouth in surprise he started to shake his head, left and right, left and right. Fish flew everywhere. What a mess! Delphi was obviously having fun, and he had chosen to play this caching trick on me, not one of the students. I laughed hysterically; I couldn't help myself. Delphi had completely fooled me, completely manipulated me. And, from what I could tell from his demeanor, he seemed to know it.

  Dolphin mythology: Neptune, crowned with laurel, offers a dolphin. NYPL

  Dolphin coin from ancient Thrace, later 5th–4th century B.C.E. Poseidon on one side of the coin with Eros riding a dolphin on the flip side, c. 300 B.C.E. AUTHOR

  Coins in the form of leaping dolphins were common throughout ancient Greece and many other countries. This coin was used on the shores of the Black Sea. In ancient times and today, the Black Sea is home to bottlenose dolphins. AUTHOR

  The newborn calves, Delphi and Pan, accompanied by their mothers, Circe and Terry. AUTHOR

  Delphi and Pan, a close alliance. AUTHOR

  Staring eye-to-eye with Delphi, encountering a strong presence. AUTHOR

  Dolphins looking in camera, observing and being observed. AUTHOR

  The underwater keyboard provided the dolphins with choice and control. When Delphi and Pan pressed a key they heard a computer-generated whistle and got specific objects or activities. AUTHOR

  Reiss at keyboard rubbing Delphi after he presses "rub" key. AUTHOR

  Reiss gives Pan a ring after he hits the "ring" key. AUTHOR

  Presley with a nontoxic mark on his head in the mark test. AUTHOR

  Reflecting on himself. AUTHOR

  Dolphin admiring her own creation, an exquisite bubble ring. AUTHOR

  After the MSR paper was published, the dolphins continued to get mirrors as enrichment objects. AUTHOR

  One of the first hurdles in the rescue. Tense times as Humphrey stopped and refused to swim through the pilings at the Liberty Bridge. ASSOCIATED PRESS

  Humphrey follows the Bootlegger back out to sea. ASSOCIATED PRESS

  Despite press conferences (here, at the National Press Club, with leading marine biologists and veterinarians), diplomacy, and public pressure, the drive hunts continue. AUTHOR

  After the film The Cove was released, the dolphin slaughtering was moved under tarpaulins, to try to hide it from any rogue cameras. HELENE O'BARRY/DOLPHIN PROJECT

  5. The Face in the Mirror

  "WHAT ARE THEY DOING?" I exclaimed to no one in particular. I was perched on the observation deck overlooking one of the pools at Marine World, monitoring Delphi and Pan in the water below. The two young males, now seven years old, were engaged in sexual behavior, belly to belly. To put it technically, they were attempting intromission. In general, for bottlenose dolphins, copulation is the culmination of an aquatic courtship dance that I think they start to learn in the first few weeks of their lives—from their mothers.

  I had been fortunate to be able to observe very closely the mother-infant interactions with Delphi and his mother, Circe, and with Pan and his mother, Terry, pretty much from day one. It was quite fascinating and revelatory—and it changed the way I viewed dolphin behavior from that time on. The behavior patterns that I saw with Terry and Pan were usually repeated within a few hours or a day later by Circe and Delphi. Whether that repetition was programmed, as Delphi was a day younger than Pan, or whether Circe was learning from the more experienced Terry, I can't really say.

  In the first few weeks of life, calves, who don't yet have full coordination of swimming and breathing, swim right next to their mothers. This is called echelon swimming. In the mother's slipstream, the calf gets a bit of a free ride, expending less energy during the early weeks of life. Slipstreaming also keeps the calf in close proximity and tightly coordinated with its mother's movements. Newborn dolphins are born without much blubber—a layer of insulation made up of fat and fiber, riddled with blood vessels, that helps dolphins and whales thermoregulate in cold and warm waters. This fatty layer provides a storehouse of energy for these mammals for foraging, migrating, and breeding. It also helps make them buoyant in water. The blubber layer is built up as the calf nurses on its mother's milk, which is 10 to 20 percent fat and rich in calories.

  As the calf gradually gains better control over its breathing, it begins to swim just underneath the mother. We call this the baby position, and it has two big benefits. It facilitates nursing from the mammary slits that flank both sides of the genital slit, at the narrowing end of the mother's underside where belly meets tail. Also, it may confer some camouflage from potential predators below. In the vulnerable first weeks of life, the light underside of the calf may be less visible when it's silhouetted against its mother's light underside.

  During these first weeks the babies begin to get bolder, darting off on little excursions of their
own, forgetting that they haven't yet learned how to stop or return to their moms. The mother quickly swims after her calf and reestablishes the echelon or baby position. In the following weeks the calf learns to stop and return to its mom, and to swim in circles around her. Dolphins are social learners, observing, listening, and imitating what they see and hear. Whether adult dolphins or whales intentionally teach specific skills to their young remains unclear. Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell have described what indeed seemed to be a case of such pedagogy in orcas, killer whales, who appeared to instruct younger orcas in predatory methods and maneuvers.1 Terry and Circe, too, exhibited several instances of what could be loosely interpreted as instruction during the early mother-and-calf interactions.

  For example, I observed Terry stop as Pan continued to move forward past her head, whereupon she pushed him backward with her rostrum, and positioned him perpendicular to her in what looked like a T formation. She then nuzzled his genitals with her beak. Terry patiently repeated this behavior with Pan: stopping, allowing Pan to go forward by himself, and then stopping him with her rostrum. She repeated this many times until Pan got the hang of putting his aquatic brakes on. A day later I saw Circe do the same sequence with Delphi. The calves began to stop on their own in the T position, lying on their sides, completely still. I called this the dead man's float (another of my highly inventive technical terms). As a reward, they received genital nuzzling from their mothers.