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SURVIVAL OF THE NICEST

HELPING FLIPPER: Dolphins help each when sick

Friday November 14,2008

By John Ingham

WETLANDS in winter are cold, noisy places where only the fittest wild-fowl and waders survive

But on one wetland reserve another approach is working – the survival of the nicest. A beautiful pair of whooper swans has just flown in from Iceland with a record brood of nine cygnets.

Three are much paler and almost certainly orphans but the adults adopted them, led them on the tough migration across the North Atlantic and all 11 are living as a family at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s Martin Mere in Lancashire.

Giving a helping hand is common in wildlife. Chimps and gorillas will adopt orphans and rear them, Alison Cronin of Monkey World said yesterday.

Female vampire bats share blood they have sucked from cattle with starving females that have failed to feed.

Non-breeding foxes help parents rear cubs and many monkeys make alarm calls if they see a predator, even though

Dolphins help sick members of their pod, nosing them up to the surface to breathe.

this makes them a target.

Wolves bring food back to the pack for members that did not take part in the kill. Dolphins help sick members of their pod, nosing them up to the surface to breathe.

This altruism is happening even in our backyards. A British Trust for Ornithology Garden BirdWatch volunteer in Skipton, Yorkshire, reported a male blackbird feeding two young song thrushes for two days until they could fly away.

Others going beyond the call of duty include old long-tailed tits which act as grandparents, helping their “children” feed their young.

Moorhen chicks stick around and help their parents raise later broods and when shelduck flock to Heligoland off Germany in the autumn to moult, they leave the ducklings in the care of “aunties”.

But is it true altruism? The blackbird was probably responding to the calls of chicks and the whooper swans may find strength in numbers at feeding time.

However, even that suggests that they know life does not revolve around them alone, which is more than can be said for many people.