Robin got wet, KD sizzled on the tower
We spent an hour watching from the surface, quizzing ourselves on IDs and assessing activity level. Kathleen passed, Robin failed: 'no Robin, that's not Paya, that's Esteban.' After the first training session, Robin spent 30 min underwwater. Dolphins are ingenious and will play with just about anything in their environment – and we do mean anything! We observed BigBoy swimming near the bottom where eelgrass grows. He pulled some of the grass up and then played with it by shooting it out of his mouth in a stream of water. Then he retrieved it and shot it out again. We have witnessed several of the dolphins here doing this behavior. They appear fond of playing 'eelgrass catch' alone, with each other, or with humans. A behavior such as this may be initiated by a single animal then through a process of observational learning – other animals watching the behavior may pick it up as well. Young animals seem to be especially good at this.
Cheers
Kathleen & Robin