Group of Dolphins Found Accompanying Body of Drowned Teen

The body of a 15-yearold girl who drowned after she was swept off the rocks on a South African beach was recently found floating in the water with a pod of dolphins nearby.

The girl fell into the ocean at Llandudno beach in Cape Town, South Africa, on October 28, and was swept away by rip currents, according to the National Sea Rescue Institute. Her body was found on October 29 around 0.6 miles offshore, alongside a group of dolphins.

“An NSRI rescue craft patrolling deep sea about a kilometer offshore reported … that the body of the teenager was located floating on the water surface accompanied by a pod of dolphins near to the rescue craft,” NSRI spokesperson Craig Lambinon told local news outlet The South African.

“I am certain they would recognize a dead human body in the water,” Olaf Meynecke, a whale and dolphin researcher at Australia’s Griffith University, told Newsweek.

Other experts agree that it is possible that the dolphins may have been attempting to help, but that it is just as likely that they were merely investigating an unusual scene, or even playing with the body.

Regardless of if the dolphins were attempting to come to the girl’s aid in this case, they have been noted to appear to recognize death as a concept and grieve losses in their social groups.

“When dolphin calves are born their mothers will help steer them to their first breath. Calves that are stillborn or die soon after birth may set the mother into a behavior pattern where they are constantly trying to steer the lifeless body to the surface,” Bruck said.

Meynecke agreed, saying: “Dolphins certainly do feel strong emotional pain in association with the death of close individuals (peers, relatives and friends). They have been [seen] carrying their dead young for days. This is true for many dolphin species from orcas to pilot whales to bottlenose dolphins.”

This behavior may not be what we as humans recognize as mourning, though.

(WHAT’s UP TODAY)