Today we are going to examine the
eternal battle between good and evil
taking place on a daily basis out at sea.
I'm talking of course about dolphins
versus sharks.  We'll get to it on this
episode of our dolphin Academy vlog
One of the most exciting elements of accompanying these dolphins out to sea is
the unpredictability of it all. Yes here
on Curaçao we are surrounded by one of
the most productive coral reef habitats
of all the Caribbean. Corals and sea life
of every species imaginable. It's always
a treat to see the dolphins interacting
within this environment. You just never
know what you might witness out here.
But what about sharks? Yes this shark
demon of the deep soulless creature with
dead eyes a mindless eating machine
Contrast that with the dolphin
aquatic angels with supernatural powers
and transcendent consciousness.
Ok for sure there are exaggerations on both ends but in a confrontation
between a shark and a dolphin, who wins?
Check out this clip from a 1975 ocean documentary series the
coral jungle hosted by mr. Spock himself.
Let's watch what he described as rare
footage of a struggle between a shark
and a dolphin. Okay we have a dolphin
they're jumping oh there's a shark and
the shark's on the bottom.
I guess the Dolphins looking at the
shark there's another jump and the shark
again yeah they're both opening their
mouths dolphins come in close and oh.
Boom. Two hits and that's it. I saw this
documentary in the 80s and remember
thinking that a lot of those shots
looked kind of familiar. That's because I
had seen them before, a lot. When I was a
kid growing up flipper was on television
in the 70s and 80s even though it's an
old 60s TV show it was in syndication
which meant that it was on every day
after school all over America.
I think I've seen every one of them.
I had several conversations with the man who
actually filmed all those sequences for
flipper, Jordan Klein. In the 90s I was
training dolphins in Roatan Honduras and
worked with mr. Klein on two different
film projects. Go back and check out our
vlog number seven.
He had amazing stories from his pioneering work in the 60s and told me how he filmed those shark scenes.
I'll give examples of what he said as we
look at this specific sequence from a
flipper episode. You will notice that
even though it's a single scene it isn't
even the same shark in each shot. It's
often not even the same size or species.
It switches back and forth between a
tiger shark and a black tif reef shark.
Oh and in almost all of
the shots the shark isn't even alive.
It was too risky to put a live shark on
camera with the child actor or the
dolphin. So the crew would manipulate a
dead shark. There are divers off camera
using a fishing line to jerk the shark's
body back and forth in front of the
camera creating the illusion it is
swimming. What about when the dolphin
makes contact I mean even though the
Sharks dead isn't it a little morbid to
train a dolphin to punch a corps?
Don't worry, according to mr. Klein the
dolphin and those close-up shots
isn't even real. It's a fake life-sized
rubber dolphin. One diver pushes the dead
shark out in front of the camera and
then the other diver punches it with the
fake dolphin. Notice the Dolphins mouth
is never fully closed on the hits.
That's the rubber dolphin with the
permanently slightly open mouth.
Go ahead, run it back and see for yourself. In the newer clipper TV series of the
90s they didn't even bother to create a
new dolphin shark punch they just
recycled the 30 year old footage from
the 60s. Anyway attaboy Copan.
In the 90s big feature films that played
in movie theaters had a bigger budget
than TV shows so they didn't have to
recycle old footage.
They built robots. Here's the fight scene
in the 96 flipper movie it's pretty
impressive animatronics for its time but
still looks kind of silly.
So why didn't these filmmakers just go
out to sea and film a fight between a
shark and a dolphin I mean there's
dozens of documentaries there must be
tons of footage. But there isn't. Not a
single shot of a dolphin fighting a
shark. Now there's lots of shots of
sharks attacking and sometimes eating
dolphins but never in reverse. Now there
is footage of orcas attacking sharks and
of course orcas are technically big
dolphins but no footage of a medium to
small sized dolphin, bottlenose dolphin,
flipper dolphin attacking sharks.
These dolphins don't fight sharks if they did it would pretty much be a lose-lose
situation for them. Facing a ridiculously
agile lightning-fast mouthful of
razor-sharp teeth, a dolphin is at an
extreme disadvantage against a shark and
they know it.
So how do they defend themselves from a shark? They bolt, scram,
skedaddle get out of dodge they run away, fast.
Even if an aggressive shark is much
smaller than them.
There's more of that footage
check it out on their channel in the
link down below. When we are out at sea
how do the Academy dolphins react when
they see a shark? The exact same way. Look at this reaction the moment Tela is
aware of a shark.
There goes Annie.
Notice they're scanning
and see the split second they realize
the danger. Where are they going? Straight back to their habitat at Dolphin Academy.
And there they go again leaving 
together during another dive.
On occasion, we are able to see the shark too.
With their echolocation, a dolphin can
tell a small shark from a hundred and
fifty meters away. Well beyond the visual
range of a diver. So obviously their best
defense is sonar. That's why they are
continuously scanning in all directions
up and down the reef. But what if the dolphin is surrounded or cornered?
In that case would they potentially punch a shark with their snout?
Even though the general consensus is that ramming is common
there isn't a shred of evidence for it.
No one's documented it. If I'm wrong tell me in the comments below.
I've seen plenty of skirmishes between
dolphins before and some of them are
quite violent. I have seen them use their
rostrum to poke or slap but in my
30-plus years of studying dolphins in
both the wild and in human care I've
never seen a head-on ram. Their go-to
moves are generally biting, slapping with
their tail we call that fluking and
full-on cross body checks.
Machu is going to help show why ramming is just a bad idea.
Okay this Machu with us right now.
And we're going to talk
about beak we call it the rostrum the
upper part is the maxilla the lower part
is the mandible and it's made of bone.
It is pretty hard. But as it tapers backwards to the back of the lower jaw it gets quite thin.
We'll have a look inside in just a
moment but the idea of a dolphin hitting
something with his full
weight, 180 kilos behind that he's
running the risk of fracturing and
especially the thin part in the back.
So he's not gonna be punching head on. Look at this CT scan and you can see
just how thin the base of that lower jaw
is. For one more clip let's see how these
two dominant males Romeo and Machu react to a very small insignificant little nurse shark.
So there you have it. A myth that was born out of a fake confrontation from a
television script has somehow made its
way into animal documentaries popular
culture and these days even the internet. Don't believe me just type in dolphin
rams shark and you'll see what I mean.
So why make a big deal out of all of this?
Because myths whether they are old
or new large or small they just get in
the way of truth.
So in closing, the earth isn't flat 
and dolphins don't ram sharks.
But let's put this myth away with a
little bit of fun.
Let's have one last look at flippers greatest hits.
