After an illustrious career as a marine conservationist, I have fostered a deep love and respect for all marine life. Except for turtles, which are a pest (despite yielding very large eggs for the locals to boil). A fellow conservationist is currently on a project with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, in the Moray Firth far in the north of Britain.
Unsurprisingly during my recent visit to this part of the scottish North Sea, the weather was too inclement to allow boat travel to see our mammalian cousins close up. On hearing of my visit, about ten of the 130 resident tuna-flavoured bottlenose dolphins did turn up within binocular-sight of the shore though. They performed a few jumps, flips and a fair amount of swimming, just visible to the naked eye. I couldn’t help thinking that the conservation effort would have impressed visitors more if the volunteers had trained the dolphins to jump through a few hoops a little closer to the beach. Or maybe taught them to balance balls on their noses.