Fabienne Delfour: “Dolphins know how to put themselves in the place of others”

A teacher at the veterinary school in Toulouse, Fabienne Delfour has been studying the life of cetaceans for thirty years, both in captivity and in their natural environment. The book she just published, In the skin of a dolphin (Flammarion, 320 pages, 22.90 euros), encourages us to abandon our convictions to better understand the richness of “their” world.

You invite readers to a “Dolphinian experience of the world”. What does it consist of?

I wanted to change the reader’s perspective when looking at the ocean. Take him out of his habits, his clichés and bring him into the body, the head and the heart of a dolphin. I relied on my experience as a researcher and on the many scientific works that have been carried out by my colleagues for years, far from the romantic and fantasized interpretations that we have of animals.

So let’s start with the body. How does this shape his experience of the world?

What characterizes the dolphin is its incredible adaptation to the aquatic environment, in which the sound propagates much better than in the air. An expert in acoustics, it can produce and analyze three types of sound: echolocation clicks, the reflection of which it uses to orient itself and find its prey; pulsating sounds with which he maintains his social relations, in particular the positive or negative feeling of what he experiences; finally, whistles which play many roles, among which that of identifying itself with its congeners. This signature whistle bears the mark of his clan.

A kind of name, then. Does it come with a first name? Sorry for this anthropomorphism…

Yes, this whistle carries a singularity specific to each individual. American researchers have shown that, at the end of gestation and then at the time of the birth of the babies, the females produce their whistled signature in a particularly abundant way. The baby will reproduce the whistle of the mother. But, as he is clumsy, he modifies this sound a little. The mother then maintains this change, which will then allow her to identify him and him alone. We are therefore witnessing a co-construction of the signature by the mother and the child.

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What about the other senses – sight, smell, touch, taste?

Touch is essential. Dolphins are observed to have many contacts, including petting, which allow them to maintain their social bonds. There are more debates on the sense of smell: genetics tells us that it is active, but we still lack completely conclusive behavioral work. On the other hand, there is no doubt about the ability of dolphins to detect chemicals in the environment: thus male dolphins taste the urine of females in order to determine at what stage of their cycle they are and if they are in state of reproducing. They also use vision, both in water and in the air, although it is less effective than ours. Finally, they benefit from a sixth sense, an electromagnetic perception, which they seem to use in particular in their hunting activities.

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