The bond between mother and child is strong. So, when a dolphin saw that her baby was being rescued by a kind group of fishermen, she literally couldn’t stop jumping for joy.
A video that captured the exhilarating moment has since gone viral. It all happened off the Italian island Procida when a young dolphin became entangled in a fishing net. Upon seeing the creature struggling, the nearby fishermen began working to set it free. Once the baby dolphin was able to swim away, the mother dolphin began showing her gratitude by jumping with glee for the onlooking fishermen. You can watch the video here.
In the video, the fishermen can be heard cheering excitedly as they watched the incredible spectacle. It’s clear the mother dolphin was expressing her thankfulness to them for helping free her baby. It was an incredibly emotional moment, but we’re glad it was able to be caught on camera. Mario Polizzi was the one who shared the footage online, which has now been shared thousands of times. Evidently, it’s making quite the impact on people, who feel moved by the female dolphin’s gesture.
“That was absolutely spectacular; one very happy mum dolphin showing so much gratitude at being reunited with its calf is truly heartwarming,” one person commented. Another wrote, “Beautiful. Brings tears to my eyes. Dolphins are really evolved and intelligent creatures.”
There’s still a lot experts still don’t know about how dolphins communicate, but what is obvious is that they’re highly intelligent creatures. In general, dolphins speak to one another through clicks.
According to The Dolphin Communication Project, all whistles are unique. “Scientists studying bottlenose dolphins have proposed the idea that each individual dolphin produces its own ‘signature whistle’ – a stable unique whistle structure that a dolphin develops during the first year of its life,” the site explains.
They continue, “Dolphins appear to be able to produce their own signature whistle quite reliably, but also the signature whistle of their friends. Isolated or lost dolphins appear to frantically produce signature whistles, apparently calling out to their friends. The jury is still out on the exact nature of the signature whistle however – some scientists believe that the whistles may not be all that stable – changing over time throughout a dolphin’s life.”
The dolphin in the video wasn’t whistling, so she must’ve been trying to communicate something different through her leaps for joy. Even though we don’t know what she was trying to say word-for-word, it is easy to tell that she was overjoyed about her calf being returned to her. Unfortunately, many dolphins are not surviving in the wild. Some dolphin breed are classified as endangered animals.
According to Dolphins-World, dolphin species are endangered primarily due to the consequences of human activities, with over 95% of dolphin deaths attributed to this cause. Had the fishermen not been able to free the young dolphin, she would’ve been a part of this statistic.
The site explains, “Alarming statistics suggest that illegal dynamite fishing, entanglement in fishing nets, collisions with boats and propellers, marine pollution, disease and beaching due to sonar interference, kill an increasing number of dolphins every year.”
We’re glad this story had a happy ending!