We knew that dolphins, the hippies of the sea, couldn’t be trusted to be good citizens of the ocean. A recent BBC documentary used specially designed underwater cameras disguised as sea life to spy on pods of dolphins and what they found was shocking; Dolphins like to get high by chewing pufferfish!
At least one pod of dolphin was seen cavorting with a shady pufferfish, taking turns “chewing” on its tail, getting a dose of puffer, and passing it to the next delinquent bottlenose before falling into a trance-like state. Also known as Fugu, dolphin crack, saltwater smack and lots of other street names, pufferfish contains one of the most powerful toxins known to man (and dolphins), tetrodotoxin. Humans have been overdosing on Fugu, the prepared form of pufferfish which gets you high (or dead) when you eat it, for hundreds of years.
We don’t advocate drug us, in humans or in dolphins, but our good friend Ariel Zvaifler of BlueLife USA is something of a specialist in the properly prepared pufferfish department. Ariel tells us that “eating barbecued-smoked Fugu has a numbing sensation that makes your mouth and lips tingle. If you have enough of it, your whole body can become comfortably numb”.
The discovery that dolphins get high on pufferfish is a quite the surprise, which for better of for worse, indicates that we have far more in common with the streamlined sea mammals than we ever imagined. The pufferfish-chewing dolphins are featured in the new BBC documentary Dolphins: Spy in the Pod. [Raw Story]
Oh, my word!!
I had a great belly laugh over this…my deceased daughter had an obsession with dolphins – even found herself a boyfriend in Florida so she could be where the dolphins and the white sandy beaches were!!
The dolphins were with them right before the accident that fateful day, as she had called me at work while the dolphins were all around their boat to express how awesome it was and how she wished I was there. She had also expressed some worry that it was getting on in the day and everyone else had already gone back to shore, and the water was getting a bit choppy.
I told her to tell her fiance that it was time to get back. She never called that evening, but it really didn’t cause concern as she always forgot to call.
She almost made it back the 9 miles to shore, but hypothermia got her just before. She was found the next morning by some fishermen. He was never found.
Gosh, I haven’t talked about this in some time – getting emotional – surprise – yea – it’s been 16 years now. I miss her still every single day. But I really don’t cry much about it anymore.
This story is so awesome, bc she always hated the fact that I smoked marijuana … and just the fact that she ADORED dolphins, and to know that they like getting high would have been so funny to see her reaction when she found this out – she would have just had the cutest reaction ever!!
Thanks for the great peek at the real lives of these gorgeous creatures – heartwarming and FUNNY!!!!
That’s THE BEST combination!!!
Love and Light
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