Nice Blog, Add Some Dolphins
Inia geoffrensis, Amazon River Dolphin
This month’s National Geographic has an article on Amazon dolphins, small pink freshwater dolphins that spend the dry season in the rivers and swim out into the fields and forests when the areas flood every year. It’s probably the first mention I’ve seen of the Amazon dolphins in the ten years or so since I saw them in the Bolivian Amazon. I learned a few things in the article, such as that the pink coloring occurs mostly on the males and is believed to be scar tissue from fighting, in contrast to the popular conception of dolphins.
I saw them on a three day bird-watching tour on the Rio Yacuma from Rurrenabaque. The river was more like a long twenty-foot-wide mud puddle, with no perceptible current. Tons of wildlife including wetland birds, capybaras, caimans, and occasional monkeys. There were piranhas in the water, so you couldn’t swim unless there were dolphins present scaring them away; looking for a swimming hole meant looking for dolphins to act as incidental bodyguards.
In theory, you got to swim with the dolphins, though the reality was more like swimming with dolphins fifty feet away ignoring you. The other guy swimming actually got bit by a piranha, so the dolphins were negligent. ‘Bit by a piranha’ sounds more dramatic than it was. ‘Uh, I think something just bit me,’ he said, and when we got out he had a little circle of teeth marks on his stomach, though no bleeding or flesh missing. I was impressed, but the driver of the boat acted like the guy was talking about getting bit by a mosquito, like he’d seen it all a thousand times before.
I’m not sure what this has to do with gardens, except that it’s a good article, I like the image of dolphins foraging through a flooded forest, and I was reminded of some wisdom I learned while doing stickers with a six year old: Everything is better with some dolphins in it.
The same National Geographic issue has an article about global food production that is a bit more on topic.
Tags: dolphins
This entry was posted on Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at 2:16 pm and is filed under miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Sounds like a trip to remember. I’ve never been to the Amazon, but it’s #2 on my list right after Antarctica. (Probably more plant sightings along the Amazon.) The swim sounds like an adventure–The guides weren’t right in there with you, huh?
June 7th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
It’s possible there was an element of “You guys go swim while I hang out in the boat and wait to see if anything bites you,” but mostly the guide was just bored by the idea of swimming with dolphins. I’m not sure how long it takes to get jaded about swimming with dolphins.
The forest was cool, but my experience of the Amazon was actually that all the plants looked alike, though that’s largely because I didn’t know much about plants at the time. I found the foliage more interesting at higher elevations, and I do now grow a few of those plants. I’m waiting for someone to hire me to do a garden installation in Antarctica.