[HN Gopher] Dolphin Bow-Riding (2009)
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       Dolphin Bow-Riding (2009)
        
       Author : walterbell
       Score  : 26 points
       Date   : 2023-04-17 02:06 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.sciencedirect.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencedirect.com)
        
       | thatguy0900 wrote:
       | Dolphins seem to find this quite entertaining to do. There are
       | many charter boats in Florida that garuntee dolphin bow riding
       | sightings, and they don't feed the dolphins or anything like that
       | I'm aware of. They just drive around and the dolphins are eager
       | to show up.
        
         | e28eta wrote:
         | A thing I noticed about "guarantees" with tours similar to
         | those, is they don't refund money, they offer a future tour for
         | free (non-transferable).
         | 
         | So the guarantee is a signal that it's likely to happen, but if
         | I'm in the area on vacation, I'm very unlikely to use the
         | guarantee. Who wants to do the same event again on your limited
         | time, even if they aren't already booked up?
         | 
         | And knowing this it changes my expectation from "definitely
         | seeing this" to "yeah, probably"
        
           | gabereiser wrote:
           | Except where I am, it's a guarantee. Indian River Lagoon is a
           | known nursing ground for bottlenose dolphins. Something like
           | 1,000+ call it home.
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | Enough people probably do feed the dolphins that they are
         | enticed to any boat, just in case. Irregular rewards are the
         | most powerful motivators.
        
           | pvaldes wrote:
           | In my experience they just enjoy the free ride while
           | traveling towards open sea. Like a skater hanging from a
           | pickup. They save a lot of energy in the process probably.
           | 
           | They seem also to enjoy to watch the humans while doing that.
           | One of the few wild big animals that will freely approach
           | humans and look you in the eye.
        
         | darksaints wrote:
         | One thing I have noticed as a sailor is that they have a strong
         | preference towards bow riding with sailboats over motorboats.
         | They will do it happily with both, but if they have a choice
         | they will almost always choose the sailboat. My guess is it has
         | something to do with propeller noise.
        
         | gabereiser wrote:
         | All along the Indian River in Florida you can find them in the
         | spring and early summer. They are just inquisitive of humans
         | and have come to see them as supportive. They can be
         | territorial though. When I sail my boat, I love seeing them
         | ride with my bow and guide me out to see. It's like a good luck
         | charm or something. I throw them a fish as I go. Amazing
         | animals. Super intelligent.
        
       | walterbell wrote:
       | Video:
       | https://twitter.com/rainmaker1973/status/1647605900079661056
        
         | gcanyon wrote:
         | That's Jonathan Livingston Dolphin.
        
         | tpmx wrote:
         | That elegance!
         | 
         | I wonder what the risk of damage is if they get hit by the bow.
         | Perhaps it's simply not physically possible, within certain
         | parameters.
        
           | pvaldes wrote:
           | Seems to be hunting or exploring the area
        
             | [deleted]
        
       | detrites wrote:
       | Can humans do this? Maybe some particular speed and bow shape
       | along with a physical motion a human could utilise to achieve
       | this? I tried to search it but the results were all about the
       | illegality of people being too close to the bow sans railing.
        
         | emj wrote:
         | It's easy to paddle along a bow wave; but you need the power to
         | handle speed changes, time it and the skill to balance on it.
         | You see people doing it in Kayaks or on Surfskis and SUPs. It's
         | related to how people surf waves long range on Surf skis, it is
         | really quite enjoyable.
        
         | pvaldes wrote:
         | Humans are too slow swimming. The bow riding maneuver needs to
         | be able to enter in the wave and also to move away fast when
         | you want to stop the ride. The risk to lose the wave and be
         | killed by the propeller if you don't move away very fast is too
         | high.
         | 
         | Bow wave raiding is definitely possible for us. I had done it a
         | lot of times.
        
       | aidenn0 wrote:
       | The abstract talks about tail (or fluke) movements. Are the tail
       | and the fluke distinct parts?
        
         | pvaldes wrote:
         | Tail includes the fluke (flat lobes at the end) but starts
         | before that. We know this because pelvic bones of cetaceans are
         | still vestigial and can be found around the "second third" of
         | the body or so. So we know where the legs would be located and
         | after this is all tail. Tail muscles do the bigger part of the
         | work.
        
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       (page generated 2023-04-17 23:01 UTC)