Healing the Dolphins
The call went out to the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge volunteers -- seven rough-toothed dolphins from a larger pod of stranded dolphins had been transported to our local Gulfarium holding tank and people were needed to help keep them alive. The dolphins had been diagnosed with severe pneumonia and were desperately ill. It was theorized that they preferred to die lying helplessly beached on the sand rather than drown in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The first night I went to the Gulfarium to help, there were only three dolphins left and the volunteers, veterinarians, and Gulfarium staff members were fighting to keep them alive. The volunteers were expected to wear swimming suits and get in the water to help. Taking off my clothes in front of strangers would be uncomfortable for me because I didn’t like my body shape and didn't want anyone to see me. I decided I would wear my tee shirt and shorts into the water over my swimsuit. Maybe this would cover enough of my body so that no one would see my faults.
I arrived at the Quonset hut covering the seawater pool they called the ‘tank’. The first thing I noticed was the heat. Large radiant gas heaters had been installed around the tank to keep the water and air warm just as this species of dolphins required. The next thing I noticed was the noise made by the dolphins exhaling as they swam around the tank.
The tank was like a large swimming pool with a set of long wide steps in the shallow end. The dolphins were swimming
in circles down in the deeper end. Their loud puffs of breathing were all that could be heard over the hissing of the gas heaters. The other volunteers were assembling for the nightly medication and feeding ritual. I stood at the edge of the pool watching the dolphins swim by me in lazy circles. They were so close; I could have reached out and touched their shiny, gray skin as they moved past me. They looked up at me seemingly as curious about me as I was about them.
There were white numbers painted on their backs so they could be easily identified. Someone explained to me that dolphins #8 and #12 were females and #9 was a male. They were communicating with each other using little chirps, clicks, and cries. I wanted to speak their language so I could chirp back to them. They seemed to be trying to talk to me and tell me something -- something important.
It was time to get in the water. I looked around as the volunteers began to disrobe; they were all in swimsuits. I took my clothes off down to my shirt and shorts but everyone's eyes were on the dolphins so I took those off, too, and just wore my swimsuit like everyone else. We headed for the stairs and entered the tank with the dolphins. The water wasn't bad -- a little oily with a faintly fishy odor but pleasantly warm. The volunteers rounded up the dolphins from the deep end and brought them to the shallow end for us to hold. Three women, me included, placed our arms gently around the dolphin's body -- we had #12, the smaller female -- and held her for her injection of antibiotics and a tube feeding of nourishing milk and pureed fish.
Her body was warm and slick and she trembled in my arms but
she didn't thrash or try to escape. As large as she was --
my arms just barely went round her body behind the dorsal fin-- she could have easily pushed away from us and swam off. But she didn't. She remained passive in our arms as we murmured to her and held her softly so as not to bruise her delicate skin. We held this 8-foot long, 400-pound dolphin like a baby in its mother's arms.
She responded to the injection into the muscle of her back and to the large plastic tube that was guided down her throat for the feeding in much the same way -- quiet submission. It was almost as if she knew we were trying to help her. After her thirty-minute ordeal was over, we released her from the encircling arms and only then did she swim away.
Holding her sister female #8 was the same. The only thing I noticed that was different this time was that I was becoming more certain the dolphins knew we were trying to help them. I asked a volunteer on the other side of #8's back if they had names for the dolphins. She said they didn't want to encourage making pets of them as our goal was release them back into the wild. The less "taming" behaviors from the humans, the better off the dolphins would be. But, I was already calling the smaller female Baby and the larger one Sissy in my mind; I decided not to mention this. Each dolphin had an individual personality. They radiated emotions through their skin and in their cries and through their body language. They seemed to understand and co-operate and need us so very much. Even #9, the male, seemed appreciative.
I had named him Chipper. I got to hold Chipper many times after that night and he got to know me so well that he could allow me to hold him by myself. Even though he was the largest and most difficult to catch of the group, he was the most docile at medication time. He quivered, trembled, and chirped frequently at first but he was quiet after I placed my arms around him. He seemed comfortable there.
By the end of that first night, after I got out of the pool to rinse and dry off before heading home, I no longer cared what I looked like or what any volunteer thought of my wreck of a body. So what if I wasn’t perfect? The dolphins didn't care or judge me or compare me to anyone else. They wanted me there -- needed me there -- to help them. Doing something good didn't require beauty, youth, or a slim body. It only required compassion, caring, and the courage to open yourself up to others. I had held dolphins in my arms and healed them and was going to set them free.
The two females, Sissy and Baby, were released into the gray dawn of early morning several months later. My Chipper wasn't with them. His cries had turned from cheerful to piteous and the veterinarian couldn't allow him to suffer any more. He was euthanized to stop his pain. I wasn't there that night but came the next day and knew then that he was gone from my life.
But he is not completely gone. Sometimes I dream of him. We are swimming in the warm Gulf waters side by side. We are strong and healthy. We find Sissy and Baby and we chirp and squeak our pleasure to be together again. We swim into a river of moonlight glimmering on the black water and we never look back. We are free.
