iStockphoto / Andrea Izzotti
Manatees are some of the most beautiful creatures in nature. For millennia, manatees have existed without any natural predators and thus they’ve developed no natural defense mechanisms through evolution. They do have 100-out-of-100 tail slapping power but really, their biggest threat is humans in boats not seeing them… And apparently, they’re also being bullied and attacked by dolphins in the Caribbean.
If someone stopped me on the street and asked “Cass, what’s something that gets you disproportionately riled up that you could talk about in front of an audience for 20 minutes without any preparation?” I’d say “how dolphins, while cute, are wildly misunderstood creatures.”
Now, there’s more proof emerging that shines a spotlight on the ‘dark side of dolphins‘ that the Big Dolphin Lobby™ works so hard to suppress. Dolphins are brilliant, yes. But they use their intelligence to do some pretty messed up things. Such as groups of male dolphins isolating females for up to ‘several weeks’ for reasons scientists can only speculate about. They have also been documented killing for fun, not food.
Now, a new study highlighted by Melissa Hobson at Live Science suggests that dolphins are killing baby manatees. BABY MANATEES! And there’s no known reason for this to happen as dolphins absolutely do not eat manatees:
In a study published Jan. 10 in the journal PLOS One, researchers documented 10 aggressive interactions by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) towards Antillean manatee calves (Trichechus manatus manatus), which targeted orphans as well as youngsters that were with their mothers. The attacks occurred near Belize over a 21-year timespan, from 1999 to 2020, with the majority of instances occurring between 2015 and 2020.
The study’s lead author, Eric Angel Ramos, told Live Science “Dolphins do not eat manatees and why they act this way with another species is unclear. It’s likely that they are quite curious when they encounter manatees, and because dolphins are often aggressive with each other, they display this behavior to other species like manatees.”
Another one of the study’s authors, Jeremy Kiszka, says “I’m confident in saying that, yeah, I think they want to inflict death.”
Baby Manatees, One Of The Planet’s Cutest Creatures
I’m pretty anti-whaling. I honestly can’t believe I even had to type that out. But I’m very much a pro-conservation person when it comes to aquatic creatures. 9 times out of 10 I practice catch-and-release when fishing. But man… when are we going to recognize that dolphins are evil murderers and they need to be controlled?
If we’re looking at a Thanos-esque type of experiment where someone snaps their fingers and either manatees or bottlenose dolphins disappear I’m picking bottlenose dolphins every time. Manatees pose no threat to anyone. They don’t ‘snap’ at the aquarium and attack humans:
You know what manatees don’t do? Literally ALL of these horrible things dolphins are doing:
Manatees are just out there in the oceans vibing out. When it gets cold they find some warm water and huddle up for a few days before going back to the shallows and eating sea lettuce. They’re perfect in every way, shape, and form.
Sure, I’ll stop to look at dolphins when I see them on the boat. In fact, where I live in SW Florida we have one of the longest continuously monitored pods of dolphins in the world. But seeing manatees up close is infinitely more special as their exponentially kinder creatures.
If dolphins are needlessly killing baby manatees, something has to be done.