[imagesource: Jeremy Bishop / Pexels]

A 15-year-old girl tragically drowned after she was swept off the rocks near Llandudno beach this past weekend.

When she was found, her body was “surrounded by a pod of dolphins” believed by some to be showing signs of mourning.

Cape Town ETC reported that it was a “touching moment in a heartbreaking situation” when the girl’s body was found on Saturday, October 29.

The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) launched a search and rescue operation for the missing teen on Friday and found her body approximately one kilometre from the shore the following day.

Apparently, her body was floating on the surface of the water, while the pod of dolphins swam around her.

It is possible that they were ‘mourning’:

Dolphins are notably sensitive creatures, and according to experts such as the Whale and Dolphin Conservation charity, have a clear sense of death and loss. It is very possible that the dolphins understood the situation, as they displayed the type of mourning behaviour they show when their own young pass away.

Dolphins swim surrounding their deceased calves for a few days following their death, and it is likely that they were doing the same for the girl.

Newsweek also reported on the incident, adding that anecdotal cases of dolphins saving humans have been reported several times before.

However, other experts poured cold water on that idea:

“I am certain they would recognize a dead human body in the water,” Olaf Meynecke, a whale and dolphin researcher at Australia’s Griffith University, [said].

“However, the stories we sometimes hear about dolphins actively trying to save people need to be taken with caution. It is not unheard of that some whales and dolphins have shown altruistic behavior towards other species. Even defending them against predators, so it is not impossible, but in many cases, a close encounter with people is often curiosity, not an intention to save them.”

Meynecke does acknowledge that many dolphin species “feel strong emotional pain in association with the death of close individuals”. However, what we recognise as mourning might be something completely different.

Jason N. Bruck, a biology professor at Stephen F. Austin State University, added that it is impossible to know exactly what the dolphins were thinking “as their minds are separated from ours by 95 million years of evolution”.

Either way, the teenager’s death is a tragic story and our condolences go out to all of those affected.

[sources:capetownetc&newsweek]