A dolphin that saved sailors from death for 24 years (10 photos)

Every experienced sailor has a couple of mystical stories in his stash. Mysterious weather phenomena, strange errors in calculating the route or time, unusual behavior of animals, and so on and so forth. But most of these stories can neither be proven nor disproved, so they turn into tales, gradually acquiring more and more fantastic details.





But the legend of Pelorus Jack is not like that, it is confirmed by thousands of eyewitnesses and has even become an integral part of the history of New Zealand!



In those years, photographing an animal, especially on the move, was extremely difficult from a technical point of view. However, history has preserved a couple of photos of Jack.

Pelorus Jack is a gray dolphin, which is already unusual. Large, up to 4 meters in length, sea animals rarely settle off the coast of New Zealand. In the entire history of observations, New Zealanders have seen them only 12 times and, for the most part, they soon went into the ocean. Jack firmly settled in the Cook Strait, between the northern and southern islands of New Zealand, and lived there his entire life.





Cook Strait is incredibly picturesque. But beneath the calm water surface lies a simply terrible landscape and unstable currents that appear and disappear in a matter of hours.

The dolphin first attracted people's attention in 1888. It appeared at the bow of the sailing ship "Brindle" and swam next to the ship, surfacing now at one side, now at the other. According to the stories of passengers, the sailors almost shot it, but the captain's wife stopped them and demanded that they do not do this. And she did the right thing. Pelorus Jack accompanied ships for another 24 years!



Each gray dolphin has its own unique coloring, so they are very easy to distinguish from each other and from other dolphins.

He kept hundreds of ships company and appeared in public so often that sailors were even able to track his preferences! Jack liked to accompany steamships more than yachts and sailboats, and if several ships entered the strait at the same time, he always chose the most agile one. Apparently, he sincerely enjoyed the opportunity to swim in the waves created by ships. Over time, people discovered an interesting pattern: not a single ship accompanied by a friendly dolphin was wrecked in the strait. It is not known whether this was a coincidence or whether the captains unknowingly followed the dolphin, who avoided underwater rocks and dangerous currents. But the very fact of the dolphin's luck raised his popularity to the skies. Some captains did not even enter the bay until they were sure that Jack was ready to accompany the ship!



Despite the huge number of eyewitnesses, Pelorus Jack still acquired a veil of mysticism. Some locals considered him Tuhirangi - the sea guardian of New Zealand from Polynesian legends.

Unfortunately, popularity does not protect against human stupidity. In 1904, one of the passengers of the Penguin steamship shot Jack with a rifle. The dolphin was not seen by people for the next few weeks, either because he was afraid of another attack or because he was recovering from his wound. However, when they began to think he was dead, the dolphin returned and again, as if nothing had happened, accompanied the ships.



Yes, and there is a book about Pelorus Jack too.

Some people said that after his return, the dolphin never accompanied the Penguin again. And the ship itself ran aground on underwater rocks four years later. About two thirds of the crew and passengers died, and the survivors claimed that Pelorus Jack was not with them on the voyage.



The Penguin was one of the largest inter-island ferries, so its sinking was a real tragedy.

The shooting incident had an unexpectedly strong impact on the New Zealand public. As soon as the dolphin began accompanying ships again and people were convinced that it had survived, the government passed a law protecting the dolphin from any encroachment. And this was already a precedent: before this, no country on the planet protected marine animals at the legislative level.



This is also Pelorus Jack, the bulldog and mascot of the battlecruiser New Zealand. But we will tell you about him (and Pelorus Jack II) some other time.

However, even the law cannot stop the passage of time. In April 1912, Pelorus Jack went out to escort ships for the last time, after which he disappeared forever. Rumors began to spread among the sailors that he had been caught by foreign whalers or local fools. We will never know the truth, but most likely he simply died of old age. In recent years, eyewitnesses often described Jack as an albino dolphin, which he was not. But we know for sure that the skin of gray dolphins turns gray with age. In addition, an entire generation of sailors grew up side by side with this dolphin, which is a long time even for such a large mammal.



A drawing of Jack, made in 1906. As you can see, the dolphin is depicted completely gray, which clearly speaks in favor of his advanced age.

Now, 100 years later, Jack's influence on the culture of New Zealand is obvious - he has become a real symbol of the country. On one of the shores of the bay, a statue was erected in his honor, several songs and poems were written about him, even a comic strip was drawn! Probably no animal on the planet has left such a deep mark on the history of an entire state.



The statue of Pelorus Jack is located at the entrance to French Pass, the most dangerous part of Cook Strait, which people try not to sail into even today. It seems to be seeing off the brave sailors who decide to go this way.