Brian Skerry:
 Researchers have told us
an awful lot about these animals
 but there is a lot more
 waiting to be revealed.
 There lies endless potential
 for discovery
 and maybe for enlightenment.
( applause )
These are, arguably,
the most intelligent
animals in the ocean.
And with this story I've worked
with five different species
of dolphins in nine locations
around the world and
I wanted to make photos
that would allow us to see
into the dolphins' world.
You know,
just parts of the dolphin world.
There is so much
that we don't know.
After spending probably
two years on this subject,
I've come to the conclusion
that there is far more
that we don't know about these
dolphin minds than we do.
But we have seen ways
that they can be smart.
So that's what I wanted to
show you tonight is
a look at some of the ways
dolphins are smart.
And I have a small video,
a short video here,
that frames this subject
sort of nicely.
It's narrated by
Dr. Diana Reese,
who is a dolphin researcher
and especially articulate
on this subject.
( music )
Dr. Diana Reiss:
 The challenge is to understand
 this kind of intelligence.
 I talk about dolphins as a
 non-terrestrial intelligence.
 These are totally
aquatic mammals with big brains.
 And I think we often
 get stuck with
 looking for intelligence
 through our human lens.
 We see it the way
 we expect it to be
 rather than thinking about
 what are the sensory systems
 of these animals,
 what are the environmental
 and social pressures
 that they face
 in their daily lives
 and thinking about their
 intelligence like that.
 Interestingly, they show
 so many things
that are similar to what we do,
 like mirror self-recognition.
 Like being able to
 learn vocally.
 Their vocal behavior.
 We learn different things
 by studying animals
 out here in the wild
 and in aquaria.
 And it's the marriage
 of those two approaches
 that gives us
 the richest picture
 of what's going on
 in the minds of these animals,
 in the lives of these animals.
These are societies in the sea.
 What are these big beautiful
 minds doing?
 These are highly complex,
 they are packed with neurons.
 They've got brains
 second to ours in size.
 What are they doing
 out here with them?
 And how do they use them?
The researcher and the species
that has been studied
the longest
is the spotted dolphin
that we see here.
 And they've been studied
 by a researcher
 named Dr. Denise Herzing
 who for, about 30 years now
 has been collecting data
 on the spotted dolphins
 of the Bahamas.
 This is Denise right here.
 She has, sort of, been called
 the Jane Goodall of the sea
 for her three decades
 of work getting to know
 over three generations
 of dolphins.
And during that time,
she's correlated,
among the research she's done,
she's correlated dolphin sounds
with behaviors to try to unlock
the mysteries of
their communication.
Very exciting stuff.
In this photo, that's Denise
on the right of the frame there,
she is wearing something
that she developed
called the CHAT.
C-H-A-T.
Which stands for
Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry.
It's essentially a computer
that she can wear underwater
that's capable of
both transmitting
and receiving
dolphin vocalizations.
When that CHAT box recognizes
one of the pre-programmed sounds
that she has put in there
after decades of research,
a human voice translates
the sound into Denise's headset.
So she's got certain words
that she knows
the dolphin has said,
you know, so, sargassum seed
or if she brings a rope
or a scarf into the water,
she tries to do that.
And she can also
type on a keyboard
words out to the dolphin.
So signature whistles
and different dialects that
she has, sort of, identified.
So, this is really the only...
only the very beginning but
what she's hoping for, in time,
is to develop true
two-way communication
with dolphins.
You know, kind of a dolphin
 Rosetta Stone
is what she has developed here.
There's only three
of these in existence.
And, as I said,
she is just getting started.
 Dolphin research in the wild
 is very difficult.
 And because of this,
 a number of researchers
 study captive animals.
Now there is certainly
no shortage of
controversy when it comes to
the subject of captive dolphins.
None of the researches
that we worked with,
that I worked with
on this story, would support,
you know, catching wild dolphins
these days for aquariums.
This was a very old
bottle-nose dolphin
that I photographed in Vallejo,
California at Six Flags.
He was playing with
his Batman basketball here,
a little cognitive stimulation.
But it was in that facility
that a researcher
named Dr. Stan Kuczaj
from the
University of Mississippi
had an experiment.
 He created a maze
 out of PVC pipe.
 It was similar to finger mazes
 that chimpanzees
 have been used with
 over the years.
 And the way this worked is
 he made a gelatin ball...
That's the yellow gelatin ball.
...and he would drop in the top
 of the PVC pipe at the top.
 And then the dolphin
 had to figure out
 how to get it out the bottom.
 It would use its rostrum
 to, sort of, poke it
 and prod it along
 and then get it out.
Well, the dolphin
figured this out
in about a second and a half.
It took no time at all.
And then once it came out
the bottom
the dolphin could eat it.
So it was a little bit of
a reward.
So, Stan then created
another experiment
with dolphins that he works with
in Key Largo, Florida.
 He took another piece of PVC,
 a PVC tube and
 he glued an end cap to it.
 And on the other end cap
 it wasn't glued.
 It would just, sort of,
 fit snugly on the other end.
 And he put fish inside.
 He showed the dolphins
 that there were fish inside.
And he had ropes on either end.
And the theory here was that
the dolphins would
have to communicate.
They'd have to not only
problem solve,
but they'd have to communicate
and work cooperatively
in tandem to figure this out.
So, he showed it to them
and threw it in the water.
 And as you can see
 the dolphins, again, really...
 It maybe took a minute
 and half this time.
 But once again nailed it.
 One would hold it while the
 other one pulled the rope.
 And then they had the fish,
 they popped out
 and they could sort of
 enjoy the spoils
 of their victory here.
 So, very, very smart.
He, as a cognitive biologist,
has worked with
many different animals.
He was quite surprised
at just how quickly
they would figure
this stuff out.
Um...
Another place that Stan
is working with captive dolphins
is in Honduras.
On the island of Roatán.
 Because it's so large
and because there's 30 dolphins,
 and there are so
 many dolphins,
 that scientists can observe,
 sort of, natural alliances
 that are formed.
 Social behaviors.
But, you know, groups would form
 little cliques,
males fighting with each other,
 mating groups and so forth.
 Quite interesting.
You know, the way they raise
revenue at this place,
or places like this, is through
these dolphin experiences,
 where tourists can come down
 mostly off cruise ships,
and have these, sort of, little
 interactions with dolphins.
It's not my cup of tea,
not the kind of thing that
I would really advocate.
But the interesting experiment
beyond the social stuff
 that Stan is doing down there
 is something he calls
 the Dolphin Reading Program,
 where he has
 a series of symbols,
 black symbols on white slates,
 that are supposed to indicate
 individual behaviors.
 And he shows the dolphin
 the slate,
 and then using hand signals,
tells the dolphin what they are
 supposed to do.
 So, in this case,
 the down arrow just
 very simply means
 the dolphin is
 supposed to submerge.
Well, that's how it begins
but then he stops
doing the hand signal.
So, weeks later,
he will come back
and just show the
two-dimensional slate
to the dolphin and
it has to be able to read.
And, you know,
in terms of science,
I guess that's a rather
big deal.
That a dolphin
can read a symbol,
remember it off a
two-dimensional slate,
not a trainer telling
them what to do,
and then perform
that action.
Well, again the dolphins
did it quite well.
Some better than others.
I mean, it seems like,
you know,
the juveniles were a little more
playful or whatever.
But if you get the right animal
it really understood this.
And here we see the dolphin
nailing it one more time.
I, on the other hand,
had a hell of a time
trying to get that line straight
as I was trying to
shoot this split-shot here
and not have water
drops on Stan's face
that made him look like
he was melting from acid but...
Anyway, well the captive stuff
was interesting
but, as always, I just wanted to
get out into the wild.
 Because this is, you know,
 where it happens for me...
 One of those species
 I photographed
 was the spinner dolphins
 in Hawaii.
 These are animals that
 are known for their aerobatic,
 you know, leaps and spins.
 Probably to shake parasites.
 I think they do it just
 because they can but...
These are some of the most
social of all dolphin species.
 You almost never see
 a single animal out there,
 or even a group of
 three or four.
 They're always
 in these very big groups.
 It's also the only,
 well, one of the few dolphins,
 that has never successfully
 been kept in captivity
 because they need
 that social stimulation.
 They need to be with
 big pods as we see here.
One of the behaviors that I
was really hoping to photograph
but didn't know if I was
gonna be successful,
was game play with dolphins.
Particularly with
the spinner dolphins.
I had heard that
sometimes you can see them
playing games with leaves
that fall into the water.
They'll pick up a leaf,
as we saw in the video,
on their pectoral fin
or their tail
or their dorsal fin and
then they swim through the water
and then they pass
it to one another in this,
you know,
morning game of catch.
So this one particular morning,
 most of the times
 I was working off of boats,
 but this one morning
I went in from a little cove off
 the island of Kona,
 the big island,
 and I swam out. It was
 early in the morning
 and I was just blown away.
 I saw these
 three spinner dolphins
 that were just adorned
 with leaves.
 They were playing
 with these leaves.
 One on its dorsal,
 tail and pectoral.
And light levels were very low,
 so I, sort of, boosted the ISO
 and was able to make this
 picture of them playing catch.
Well, one of the other things
that I wanted to focus on
with this story about
how dolphins are smart
was to look at
feeding strategies.
Because unlike
many other animals,
dolphins have developed
unique feeding strategies
depending where in the world
they're located geographically.
They have invented these ways
of feeding
that are quite interesting.
 In the Bahamas,
 bottle-nose dolphins
 have developed a strategy
 known as crater-feeding.
 They use their echo location,
their sonar, to find little fish
 that are hiding under the sand
 and when they find a fish,
 they position their
 body vertically
 and, sort of,
 dig with their rostrum
 down into the sand,
 creating this crater.
 It's like seeing
 a dolphin growing out of
 the bottom of the ocean here
 when you swim down like this.
 So, again,
 this is all free diving
 down about 30 feet
 trying to be stealthy
 to get close enough
 to get a picture like this.
In Florida, bottle-nose dolphins
 have developed
 a completely different
 feeding strategy.
 This is in Florida Bay,
 near the Everglades,
 where these dolphins
 have developed something
 called mud-ring feeding.
 And the way this works is
 a single dolphin will make
 a perfect mud ring
 around a school of fish
 and he does that by,
 it's in very shallow water
 and he'll swim around
 using his tail
 to disturb the mud,
 making little plumes of mud,
eventually encircling the fish.
 And the fish will freak out
 but they won't swim through
 the mud ring
 they actually leap over.
 So his buddies who are waiting
 out there, with their...
 with their mouths open
 and then he comes around too.
And you know, the fish literally
 jump right into their mouths.
 This stuff had never
 been photographed before.
 I was able to do this
 from a helicopter
 with a 500 millimeter lens
and I used this steadying device
 called the glide-cam
 that actually
 allowed me to shoot
 with that one lens
 from a moving helicopter.
 Pretty interesting stuff.
 In Patagonia, Argentina,
 I wanted to work with
 dusky dolphins
 because I knew that
 dusky dolphins
 have a strategy where
 they use communication
 in a cooperative
 feeding event,
 where they will use the sound
 to create bait-balls
 of anchovies.
 There is lot of anchovies
 in the Gulf of Nuevo here.
 And they also do this
 leaping behavior,
 not unlike the spinners,
 but they'll leap out
 of the water.
 Scientists tell us that
 that's for two reasons.
One, is to create a splash
that scares the fish
into these tight balls.
But it also evidently calls
dolphins from across the bay
to come and help
in this feast.
So the water here
is temperate water.
It's quite cold.
And when I was there,
it was really thick
with plankton and algae.
The visibility wasn't that good.
 Very tricky to photograph
these highly contrasted dolphins
 but that was the behavior
 I wanted to photograph,
 This cooperative feeding.
So, I spent three weeks
in Patagonia
and I didn't see anything
until the very last day.
It was literally the last
ten minutes of the last day.
I way out in the
Gulf in a small boat
and was pretty much ready
to give up and surrender,
and we saw birds working.
And the captain of the boat said
"I think something
must be happening, Brian."
So, with a little 30 foot cubic
bottle on my back, I dove down.
 And I came upon this scene
where we had six dusky dolphins
 feeding cooperatively. I got
 there sort of at the tail end.
But you still see a little ball
 of anchovies here.
 And the dolphin at the bottom
 was just about to pick off
 one of the anchovies.
All the white particles there...
 Those are fish scales.
 And, there is a penguin,
 a magellanic penguin
that had an anchovy in his mouth
 that was down there.
 And even a sheer water bird
 that was diving down.
 Everything joins
 in on this feast.
So sometimes things do go right.
 A bit of serendipity here.
 But all... all good.
Well, the last species
of dolphins
that I wanted to
share with you tonight,
and the last
feeding strategy actually,
occurs with the biggest
and most intelligent
species of dolphin
and that is the orca.
 So to photograph
 this unique strategy,
 I returned to
 Patagonia a year later,
 at a different part
 of Patagonia,
 this was Punta Norte
 in the Valdes Peninsula.
 And it was a strategy known as
a stranding behavior for orcas.
 This is the object
 of their desire:
 The little sea lion pups
 that are born in January
 and about by April,
 they begin testing the waters
 and going in and sea lion pup
 is what's for dinner.
This is the only place
in the world
where these orcas have
developed this strategy
where they will actually
come up on the beach.
 And almost strand themselves
 to try and catch one of these
 sea lion pups.
 It was amazing to see this.
 They have to be very
 resourceful to do it because
 it can only happen
 when the tide is high.
 They don't want to
 get stranded at low tide.
It can only happen
in places where
there's, sort of,
a natural channel
where they can do that.
The pups have to be there,
and sort of in the surf zone.
They can't expend
a lot of energy,
you know,
wasted energy to do this.
But here you see one of those
orcas very close to shore
in this jade colored sea here,
just sort of cruising along.
And when the moment is right,
that orca will just
turn on a dime
and just come racing in.
And the pups,
you know, are just clueless.
They have no idea
what's happening.
It's like,
"Oh, are you my friend?"
You know, and this thing is just
waiting under the waves here.
 And this is the next frame
 in the sequence
 a millisecond later.
 By that time the pups usually
 figure it out but it's--
 it's usually too late
 and they will just kind of
 race right in and grab them.
 And sometimes the females,
this is largely done by females,
 and they'll take the pup out
 while it's still alive
 and they actually
 play with it off shore.
 It's, kind of,
 this gruesome game
 where they'll flip it up
 with their tail.
 That little pup
 is actually screaming,
 you can see the mouth is open.
 And it's teaching,
the orca is teaching it's calf,
 it's a calf on the left
 of the frame there.
 So, this is all
 learned behavior.
You know,
this is what dolphins do.
It's not inherent in their DNA.
It's moms teaching calves
and sort of this culture,
if we can use that word,
where they're passing this on
to the next generation.
 But you know, sometimes
 they are not successful
 and I guess nature
 gives and takes.
 And we see, one of the
 pups here getting away
 and the orca has to wiggle
 its way back into the ocean
 and try for another day.
 A happy ending for the seal--
 seal pup fans
 in the audience here. So...
 In closing,
we slip back beneath the surface
 looking into the
 eyes of dolphins
 and can't help but wonder
 how much more do they know.
 What are they really thinking?
 Researchers have told us
 an awful lot about
 these animals and
 about the entire ocean
 for that matter.
 But there's a lot more
 waiting to be revealed.
 Within the sea,
 there lies endless potential
 for discovery
 and, maybe, for enlightenment.
Thanks very much.
( applause )
