A pair of kayakers have described rescuing two women in separate incidents after a dolphin began pushing them underwater. <\/p>\n
Brothers Rhys and Gareth Paterson said they saw the animal jump on one swimmer’s back and force her head below the surface at Lyme Bay in Dorset on Thursday. <\/p>\n
“She was kind of gasping for air,” said Rhys. “She was terrified.” They later saw the dolphin do “exactly the same thing” to another woman.<\/p>\n
Experts from the Marine Management Organisation have warned that dolphins are “unpredictable wild animals” and advised swimmers to stay at least 100m (328ft) away.<\/p>\n
They also reminded people that dolphins, whales and porpoises are protected by law.<\/p>\n
The bottlenose dolphin, known as Reggie to locals, was first spotted in the bay earlier this year and has become a regular visitor – to the excitement of residents and tourists. <\/p>\n
While many have welcomed his visits, marine experts say human interaction can cause dolphins to lose their natural wariness and become aggressive.<\/p>\n
This appears to be what the brothers witnessed when they spotted the first swimmer in distress about 200m (656ft) from shore.<\/p>\n
Rhys said they saw the dolphin jump on the woman’s back. <\/p>\n
“We thought he was doing what he normally does \u2013 just a bit of fun,” he said. <\/p>\n
But after hearing her scream, they paddled over and saw the dolphin repeatedly push her head underwater.<\/p>\n
After bringing her back to shore, they returned to the water and saw the same dolphin targeting another woman, who was holding onto a yellow buoy while “looking panicked”. <\/p>\n
Rhys said swimmers should try to get back to shore as quickly as possible if they spot the animal.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s only a matter of time before the dolphin gets hurt or someone gets seriously hurt,” he said. “It is a wild animal, as exciting as it is.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s up to everyone now to start respecting its space a little bit more.<\/p>\n
“If we weren’t there that day I think something bad could have potentially happened.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of kayakers have described rescuing two women in separate incidents after a dolphin began pushing them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-83074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}