What are the odds: bottlenose dolphin jumps into woman's boat!

Bottlenose dolphins are known for their intelligence, smiling face, and aerial acrobats when they leap into the air, which can be as high as 16ft.

On Tuesday afternoon, August, 4, 2009, a group of dolphins were frolicking in the water near Marco, Island, Florida. Evidently, they didn’t notice a boat that cruised in for a closer look at their antics, because one of them leaped into the air and landed directly on the boat’s floor. The dolphin was stunned, but unhurt, and the people were shocked beyond words by the jaw-dropping display.

“It was unbelievable,” said 66 year old Dee Boge. “We were like ‘Oh my god, oh my god, how are we going to get this dolphin off my boat.”’

Boge and several friends were headed home on her 22-foot Hurricane boat, when they noticed the dolphins playing around in the water just south of the S.S. Jolley Bridge. The incident happened as Boge’s boat edged in closer to the oblivious creatures.

They called for help from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, who advised them to keep the dolphin wet and calm. Boge navigated her boat to the Collier Blvd. boat ramp, where the authorities took over. Rookery Bay officials treated the dolphin for a small cut over its eye. They carefully weighed and measured the dolphin, who seem to take it all in stride. Then the staff used a stretcher to return the 120 pound dolphin, nicknamed “lucky”, back into the water.

“I still can’t get over the shock of it,” Dee said, from her home that afternoon. “It’s a once in a lifetime thing. I hope it never happens again.” (For the sake of the dolphin)

Chances are pretty good it won’t. Bottlenose dolphins are found in tropical oceans and other warm waters around the globe. They were once widely hunted for meat and oil (used for lamps and cooking), but today only limited dolphin fishing occurs. However, dolphins are threatened by commercial fishing for other species, like tuna, and can become mortally entangled in nets and other fishing equipment. Dolphins are warm-blooded mammals, who must surface frequently to breath. If they are snared by under water nets—they drown.

Dolphins use echo-location to find prey and will often surround a school of fish, then take turns swimming through the school to catch fish. Dolphins will also follow seabirds, other whales and fishing boats to feed opportunistically on the fish they scare up or discard.

Bottlenose dolphins are the smaller species of the porpoise family, which includes the larger animals like the orca and beluga whales. Bottlenose dolphins are social mammals, who swim in pods of 5-100 plus and often swim along side ships to conserve energy by a type of drafting called bow-riding. All species of dolphins are protected under CITES, the Endangered Species Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

A dolphin landing in a boat? What are the odds, indeed. If only we could know what the dolphin was thinking or the stories he told. There must be a movie in there somewhere.