While it seems futile to try to further defend myself in this thread, I’ll try. I only saw them jumping out of the water when they were approaching from behind the boat. They were quite far away and they did not seem that big. When they came up along side the boat, I only saw their dorsal fins and blowholes emerge from the water. I couldn’t really tell the scale.
It wasn’t until I was in the water and first one jumped all the way out of the water right in front of me that I fully understood how big these guys were.
astro, after seeing the wiki article on the false killer whales, I’m quite certain that that is what I saw. I remeber that they did not have the long slender snouts of the bottlenose.
You would think I’d be paying more attention. I don’t know What Exit, so I can’t attest to his dolphiness, but I meant to say " Like what What Exit said…". :smack:
Hey man, if you got to see a false killer in the open ocean, I’m envious. I’ve been told they’re just as dopey and friendly as bottlenoses, but they’re too big for me to feel comfortable testing the theory.
(He might have seen a big bottle, but if it didn’t have a beak it was a either a pilot whale, a false killer or a very confused, giant porpoise.)
Stoner Ocean-Biology Guy, who worked for the “swim with the dolphins” folks went on for quite some time about the prehensile dolphin penes, and – once Flipper showed it off – about all the other prehensile penes out there.
Most whales, elephants, and other large critters with penes need 'em prehensile, so they can find their way in to where they need to go.
Still not as strange as the bifurcated hemipenes that snakes have.
I’m at work, so no cite because there’s no way I’m typing “prehensile penis” into Google here.
This issue has absolutely nothing to do with the seafood industry or sport fishing. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the (strictly regulated) wildlife interaction industry. It is regarding the interaction of the general public with wild dolphins in their natural habitat.
I almost didn’t respond to your query because I don’t want to be accused of beating a dead horse. I am now fully aware that the OP was relating an incident that occurred many years ago when he was a teenager and didn’t know any better. My beef with the OP has been resolved, and this post is in no way directed towards him.
My parents are marine biologists, so I’ve had a life full of understanding what goes on down beneath the sea. To tell the truth, I get quite scared of swimming in open ocean (Dad specialized in sharks,plenty of gory slides, so, yikes!) Still, can take it in a statistical sense, much more likely to have a nasty car crash…
But, Brewha, that was really an ignorant thing to do; as you’ve now said, you had misidentified the species. Just Not Knowing. What I have to disagree with is calling any wild creature"Evil". They are going by what they have as their course in life, filling their role by what has proven to work for survival for thousands of years.
With sharks, again, my Dad researched them, and I saw some scary examples of their efficiency, but cannot classify them as Evil. They perform their natural function, and are quite efficient at it. It’s tragic and horrid when humans are victims/food , but that is the course of life on this planet. It’s not “Pure evil”, but adapting survival, and humans fit into that humbly in the larger scope of life. If we want to explore the evil of nature in regard to humans, well, that’d be a long tale, from virus to killer whales.
So, anything changed in your regard to those evil beings in your OP?
Wow…and I thought the guy on the youtube video using his butt as a bottle rocket launcher was dumb! To be fair though, when I am at the zoo and I see the tigers and lions in their environments my first thought is, “Kitties!” and I want to pet them really badly. I understand that is the equivalent of death, so I don’t pet them, but I really really want to. If I had been in your situation I would have probably thought, “Dolphins! Eeee!” and thought about jumping in with them myself. Again, I wouldn’t have done it for fear of the killing that would ensue, but I would have really wanted to jump in with them.
I will re-post my question, with the significant portions bolded, which you seem to have missed.
My question was why you would equate dolpins with wild animals. It isn’t illegal to interact with wild animals in Florida, as you suggest, only dolphins, at least as far your cite shows.
It is in fact perfectly OK to interact with wild animals in Florida, just not all wild animals.
When I went to one of the zoos in Australia that lets visitors cuddle a koala, they said that the koalas you could do that with were ones that had been raised by humans.
To be fair though, when I am at the zoo and I see the tigers and lions in their environments my first thought is, “Kitties!” and I want to pet them really badly. I understand that is the equivalent of death, so I don’t pet them, but I really really want to. If I had been in your situation I would have probably thought, “Dolphins! Eeee!” and thought about jumping in with them myself. Again, I wouldn’t have done it for fear of the killing that would ensue, but I would have really wanted to jump in with them.