Jones spoke soothingly to the St. Bernard and managed to calm him down. But the dog would not let a single car move by until little Randy was safely off the road.14
I think you’d have a hard time convincing little Randy’s parents that animals are just mechanical contraptions.
Now, if you are like me, you may get a little choked up when you learn of these incidents. These are not just cases of dogs waking up their masters because they are panicking in the midst of a fire and then later getting credit. This is not the work of machines without feeling, driven only by instincts and reflexes. They are demonstrations of courage and devotion and selfless love. They are intelligent and brave responses to emergencies.
Unlikely Heroes
It is not only dogs and dolphins who have shown their reverence and devotion to human life by going to enormous lengths to save it. The animal kingdom, it turns out, is full of remarkable samaritans.
In 1975, a desperate shipwreck victim off the coast of Manila was stupefied to see a giant sea turtle swimming toward her, seemingly offering its aid. The floundering woman climbed aboard the turtle, which then did something turtles supposedly never do. Sea turtles spend most of their time underwater, but this one must have somehow known that the poor woman needed constant support to survive, and must also have wanted very much to take care of her. It proceeded to stay at the surface for two full days, going without food itself, so it could continue to carry her and keep her alive. When human rescuers finally appeared, “eyewitnesses thought the woman was floating on an oil drum until she was safely on board—whereupon the ‘oil drum’ circled the area twice and disappeared.”15
To be taken for an oil drum might not have surprised the turtle all that much. You see, for many years, turtles were not legally recognized as animals in the United States. One of the earliest crusaders for animal protection, Henry Bergh, found this out when he tried to stop the torments visited upon green turtles. These great animals, which have been known to live for hundreds of years and grow to 600 pounds or more, are sought after as a status source of soup and steak for the wealthy, with the young turtles being eaten when they weigh only about 50 pounds. Bergh found that the turtles were transported by ships from the tropics to the Fulton Fish Market in New York. En route, the turtles did not exactly travel first-class. For several weeks they lay on their backs out of the water, with nothing to eat or drink, like so much upside-down luggage. They were held in place by ropes strung through holes punched in their flippers.16
Bergh did everything he could to halt this activity, but when he brought the perpetrators to court, the judge acquitted them on the grounds that a turtle was “not an animal within the meaning of the law.”17 Accordingly, ruled the judge, even the barest minimum of protection against cruelty that was afforded animals by the law at that time could not be applied to turtles.18
Most of us, like that judge, are conditioned by a culture that thinks of animals as mere machinery and could never imagine that a sea turtle would be capable of saving a human life. Nor would that same type of thinking allow us to believe that a canary, however sweet its song and pretty its feathers, could be much more than a decorative and bright adornment to a house. But the residents of Hermitage, Tennessee, know better.
In 1950 in Hermitage there lived an elderly woman who was known to everyone around simply as Aunt Tess. The old lady lived alone with only her cat and a canary named Bibs. Aunt Tess’s niece and her husband lived a few hundred yards away from her house, and they were concerned lest something happen to the aging woman without anyone knowing.
One night they were awakened by what seemed like a tapping on the window. It wasn’t loud, and they tried to ignore it, but the tapping continued.
Finally, the niece got out of bed and went to the window to investigate. She drew back the curtains, and there, to her amazement, beating frantically against the windowpane, was Aunt Tess’s canary, Bibs. The little bird had never before been outside the aunt’s house, but she had somehow managed not only to get out but then to find her way several hundred yards to the niece’s window. The task took all the little bird had, however. Before the niece’s eyes, Bibs literally dropped dead from exhaustion on the windowsill. The niece and her husband immediately rushed over to Aunt Tess’s house and there found the old lady lying unconscious and bleeding on the floor. She had suffered a bad fall and may well have died had not help arrived when it did. The canary had given its own life to save that of Aunt Tess.19
The more I have learned about animals, the more I have realized how conditioned I have been in my attitudes toward them. I never would have imagined a bird capable of this kind of thing. Nor would I have thought a pig likely to be a lifesaver. But I would have been wrong.
A couple of years ago United Press International carried a photograph and story that were picked up and printed in many of the country’s major newspapers. The photo was of Carol Burk; her 11-year-old son, Anthony Melton; and a pig. What made the story newsworthy was that mother and son had gone swimming in a Houston lake. The boy had inadvertently strayed too far from shore, panicked, and begun to sink. The boy’s pet pig, Priscilla, had evidently felt his distress because she rushed into the water and began to swim toward him. While Anthony’s anguished mother watched helplessly, the boy managed to stay afloat until the pig reached him. Then he caught hold of her leash. Anthony’s mother watched awestruck as Priscilla the pig proceeded to tow her son safely to shore.
The Value of Life Itself
Human-centered animal that I am, I find it easiest to appreciate the heroism of animals who save human lives, who rescue people. But I’ve come to be impressed, too, by the numerous accounts of animals inexplicably going out of their way to save the lives of other animals.
Now, the official government-run Soviet News Agency TASS does not ordinarily carry human-interest stories. But in September 1977, TASS reported a remarkable incident that occurred in the Black Sea. A Russian fishing boat found itself being circled by a small group of dolphins. The animals seemed to want something and kept circling until the sailors decided to raise anchor. Immediately, the dolphins sped off, as if they had been waiting for the anchor to be lifted and wanted to be followed. The puzzled sailors decided to follow along to see what would happen and were led to a buoy near which they saw a young dolphin trapped in a fishing net. Understanding now why the dolphins had come to them, the men released the trapped dolphin. The dolphins then proceeded to guide the boat back to the exact spot where it had been originally anchored.20
In this case, dolphins teamed up with human beings to save the life of one of their own kind. But there are many cases, perhaps even more remarkable, in which dolphins and human beings have collaborated to save the lives of other species, such as whales.
On September 30, 1978, about 50 pilot whales became beached just north of Auckland, New Zealand. Government officials tried in every way to lure the great whales out to sea, because if they remained where they were they would all certainly die. Nothing worked. Then the officials got the idea of guiding a passing group of dolphins into the harbor. This they did, and when the dolphins saw the whales they seemed instantly to understand the whole situation. Wasting no time, the dolphins immediately took charge and literally herded the whales back to the open sea, thereby saving their lives.21
Of all the accounts I have on record of dolphin heroism, perhaps the most amazing comes, once again, from TASS. Their report tells of sailors on board the fishing vessel Neverskoil, which was sailing off the coast of Kamchatka on August 14, 1978. The sailors heard a sea lion bellowing for help and saw that the creature was surrounded by a number of killer whales. But before the whales could devour the sea lion, a group of dolphins appeared, and the whales backed off. The sailors watched as the dolphins then swam away, and they thought this high drama of the seas was over. But the whales made another run at the beleaguered sea lion, who again began bellowing in fear. I can’t help but think that what the sailors saw next must have astounded even these hardened veterans of the sea. The dolphins, hearing the