Date: Tue, 23 Jul, 1996
Red Sea dolphins save swimmer
From Oz Goffman

On Tuesday, July 23 at 6 p.m. in the evening, the diving boat Jadran, which operates in the Gulfs of Aqaba and Suez, was sailing north from Ras Muhammed to Sharm el-Sheikh bay. At Marsa Bereka, the crew observed a pod of 5 dolphins and stopped the boat to swim with them. Three people entered the water to swim with the dolphins: the owner, Dani Hermon, the English dive instructor Harry Hayward, and an American-British guest, Martin Christopher Richardson. Dani and Harry only remained a short time in the water, but Martin stayed longer.

After returning to the boat, the people onboard the Jadran heard a scream and rushed to the side of the boat to see Martin being thrown out of the water 1-1.5 m. They realized he was being attacked by a shark or sharks and launched a zodiac to rescue him. As Harry approached Martin in the zodiac, he saw 3 dolphins swimming around Martin, as if protectively surrounding him. They were also slapping their fins and flukes on the water's surface, creating a lot of splashing and noise. This seemed to scare off the shark from a further attack and has been reported as a behavior that dolphins engage in when protecting themselves against attack from killer whales.

Martin was badly wounded with deep bites on his back, shoulder, and chest. He was taken to the Jadran where his massive bleeding was controlled and then was delivered into the care of a local Sharm el-Sheikh diving doctor (Dr. Magdi) and rushed to the Egyptian army hospital in El Tur. As of Friday, he was reported in good condition with one broken rib, pneumothorax, and deeps cuts.

The dolphins clearly saved this man, of their own free will, from a further attack. Only two other reports of shark attacks have come from this region.

Oz Goffman
IMMRAC, Israel
email: RHSS101@UVM.HAIFA.AC.IL

Here is an update on the information:

It is very hard to observe dolphins in the wild, but the information we get from such encounters in very important. There should be some formal rules, across country lines, such as not swimming in the open ocean (in the blue), not chasing the dolphins by boat or by snorkeling gear, not bothering these animals when they are resting, etc. It seems that most of the incidents where dolphins act aggressively towards humans occur when humans disturb or put too much pressure on solitary dolphins. Many of these swimmers are also not aware of or pay attention to the body language of the dolphin, which frequently will indicate that the dolphin is becoming annoyed. We see with our solitary dolphin, subtle and not so subtle changes in swimming behavior, mouth snapping, etc. that indicate she has had enough.

One other thing about this attack: someone asked if the dolphins were fed by the people on the boat. As far as we know, nobody feeds marinee animals/mammals in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez as the rules and regulations of the Egyptians/Israelis are very stringent on such things. So there is not lure/enticement for these animals to approach humans other than curiosity.

Oz Goffman, Director, IMMRAC

email: rhss101@uvm.haifa.ac.il



Back to MENU