As the vessel headed to port, Herzing said, “the dolphins came to the side of our boat, not riding the bow as usual but instead flanking us fifty feet away in an aquatic escort” that paralleled the boat in an organized manner. Meanwhile on board it was discovered that an expeditioner had died while napping in his bunk. When the boat’s captain slipped into the water to size up the situation, the dolphins remained aloof. They would not approach the research vessel, refusing even invitations to bow-ride. But one year the creatures behaved differently. For decades, at the start of each four-month-long field season, the dolphins would give the returning humans a joyous reception: “a reunion of friends,” as Herzing described it. The free-living dolphins of the Bahamas had come to know researcher Denise Herzing and her team very well. Elephant herds crossing a lake bed in the sun, Amboseli, Kenya, 2008 photograph by Nick Brandt
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