Watching a small pod of dolphins herd fish toward a sandbar. There are a lot more fisherman too who tell me the whiting are running (imagining little trout-size fish in nylon shorts and running shoes fins a pumpin) So maybe the dolphins are also fishing for whiting. Their strategy is different. They herd the fish into a ball using teamwork. It's not hard to spot when they get a tight ball going because the gulls and pelicans dive bomb the shit out of it. When they get the tight ball, that's when they strike and feed.
Mostly this morning, I wonder how the dolphin feels to be the one who does all the work, whether there is shame or guilt on the gull's part for coasting off the work of someone else. As a human being, I want the gulls to do their own work. I want the dolphins to reap the entire reward of their labors. It's hard not to draw certain parallels between the dolphin and gull situation and the way corporations are structured. The craftspeople doing the fish balling while the middle management and CEO's grow fat off the work of someone else.
As a biologist, I just laughed at that paragraph above. They are dolphins for gawd's sake, not a symbol of the hierarchical corporate structure. They will make the fish balls to feed themselves, perhaps reckoning a certain loss to the gulls in the process. They can't eat the entire ball anyway. I'm sure they don't feel anything other than territorial about the fishball.
As for the pelicans and gulls - it's survival of the fittest baby and these birds have figured out a way to get more food in their bellies with very little work, thereby ensuring a better chance of their own genetic pool being passed on. In biology, that's considered smart strategy.
The drive of both the dolphin and the birds is strictly instinctual survival. The drive to live, breed and pass on their genes. Only we humans make it more complicated.
Very nice poost
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