Evil Somali Pirates Attacked by Thousands of Dolphins (caveat: possibly totally bogus)

It's Xinhuanet, so take it with a grain of salt. But even if this is phony PRC naval propaganda, the headline and the story are too good not to re-blurb, and here's the "official" Xinhuanet photo, which I can't repost here because they're jerks about re-use.

Thousands of dolphins blocked the suspected Somali pirate ships when they were trying to attack Chinese merchant ships passing the Gulf of Aden, the China Radio International reported on Monday. The Chinese merchant ships escorted by a China's fleet sailed on the Gulf of Aden when they met some suspected pirate ships. Thousands of dolphins suddenly leaped out of water between pirates and merchants when the pirate ships headed for the China's.

Thousands of dolphins block Somali pirates (via @hi_im_monkey)

Photo: "Dolphin Song," from the Flickr photo stream of the wonderful world-adventurer Steve Jurvetson, who could probably vanquish Somali pirates with his bare hands.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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PS

@#4 @#27

They’re just paying back their buddy, the world’s tallest man.
ovirto

ok, maybe this did happen, but I don’t think they did it on porpoise.
eustace

(rimshot)
jr416

The Chinese heard that the US was using Seals to fight the pirates so they came up with a story that they were being protested by dolphins?
Anonymous

Straight from China’s Ministry of Truth.
Takuan

how about that sniper execution huh? Do they have motion compensating sights they aren’t telling us about?
V

but did they have lasers attached to their heads?
Brainspore

Takuan: you should see WIRED’s Danger Room Blog entry on that subject.

Two words: smart bullets.
Felton

Lucky for the pirates China didn’t break out the flying piranha.
Takuan

oh goody, next there’ll be flying drone ‘bots with smart bullet rifles. I’m pretty suspicious about those pirate killed. I don’t care how good they are, three perfect shots in those conditions? There’s either hidden tech or the report isn’t mentioning the three hundred other rounds that missed.
Takuan

they already have those, Felton
http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/entweb/Galleries/galleryimages/blackflyonhuman-doe.jpg
Anonymous

Of Note: Thousands of dolphins pointedly refuse to protect Japanese merchant ships…
barnaby

“The pirates could only lament their littleness befor the vast number of dolphins.”

Hmmm…now there’s a subtle metaphor. Written by xinhuanet, did you say?
Felton

Takuan: Eew! I’ll take my chances with the piranha.
Takuan

ah, been to Northern Ontario I see.
DreadJester

Straight out of Red Alert 3………. Did the dolphins use their anti-ship sonic disruptors?? lol
frogmarch

Tak,

if you’re still reading this thread:

http://www.slate.com/id/2216031/

“The bobbing of the lifeboat would have been a factor, but snipers regularly shoot at moving targets from moving vehicles. (Advanced Navy SEAL training includes target practice from helicopters.)”
Brainspore

Great, now Aquaman is working with the Chinese.
Xander Crews

May be totally bogus…?
Takuan

“The pirates could only lament their littleness befor the vast number of dolphins.”

I suppose a super-pod of dolphins may have swam by. Of course they would just dive under any ship crossing them.

Been paying attention to what China is doing in Africa these days?
nck wntrhltr

Also, rainbows shot out of their nether regions and it rained rice candy.
DelicateFlower

Huge pods of dolphins in fact may suddenly erupt around a boat. I have witnessed this myself off the coast of Southern California. It’s absolutely spectacular. They appear in a matter of seconds, hang around for a while, then disappear in a matter of seconds. I suspect these dolphins (if real) were more interested in riding the wake waves of the ship than acting as a de facto marine security force.
dainel

If you ask me, the dolphins were actually protecting the little pirate boats from the escorts. Those little pirate boats would be out-gunned by the smallest navy ship.
barnaby

Pods are attracted to boat convoys often because of the small fish their propellers stir up and disorient. It’s an easy feeding frenzy.

Yes, there were sweet sonic attack dolphins in Red Alert 3, but they worked for the US. Damn defectors!!!
Snig

An American story in the same vein would have featured Bat Boy.
Anonymous

NEXT: Somali Pirates employ swimming battle-ready kodiak bears in pirate operations to fend off increased dolphin threat.
airship

Too awesome to be fake.
igpajo

It’s the top secret US Navy crack squad of elite pirate hunting dolphins.
Andy Nonymous

whaddaya mean bogus? it is well-known that china has a battalion of long dolphins for precisely this sort of operation.
Anonymous

Don’t forget that for the Chinese, signs from heaven indicate whether those in charge are doing a good job or not. One of the worries of the Sichuan earthquake was that people would take it as a sign that their leaders were no longer in favor. Tying to show that dolphins were protecting Chinese ships would show that heaven favors them.
Shane

I always suspected that Dolphins were scheming in support of global warming.
Anonymous

Wait, didnt it say the Chinese fleet was there as well? So.. the dolphins provide better protection than chinese soldiers?
Takuan

that sounds plausible Frog, only 100 feet makes a difference.
Anonymous

are these the same somali pirates that have been attacked since mid-90′s by medical waste ships dumping off the coast, or the large fish trawlers(sp?) depleting the local food source?
number11

Let’s see. The dolphins got between the pirates and the ship. In this picture we see the ship in the background, and the dolphins between it and the camera. So the Xinhuanet photog is one of the pirates? Or one of the dolphins?
Jerril

This is right up there with the Army Of Bears Attacks Russian Platinum Mine headline that I saw last year.

If I tried either of these with the players in my RPG group, they’d laugh me right out of the room.
Anonymous

One might question the use of the term “Evil Somali pirates” upon listening to Mohamed Abshir Waldo’s interview on today’s DemocracyNow.org … who is really evil here?
Takuan

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/13-6
wizardofplum

Takuan.You’re about 3500 miles off base.Piranahs are indigenous to South America principally the Amazon and tributaries.Up here in “The Other Eden” we have the Northern pike or Garfish,both have impressive dentures but not the ferocity of the piranah.
Jazzhigh

So, not many druids in your RPG group then? ;)
(puts on nerd gamer hat)
Takuan

Ontario blackflies make pikes laughable. Quit trying to cover up, we are on to you.
Takuan

http://www.nfb.ca/film/blackfly/
Lobster

Yeah, like there are thousands of dolphins left in Chinese waters.

You’d think if the dolphins were going to pick sides they’d be for the guys who disrupt the steady stream of noisy, polluting ships steaming through their homes.
Patrick Dodds

I, for one, welcome…. ah never mind.
Jerril

@20: Druids? No, we’ve got mostly Athiests, and a Salvation Army Christian. :D

More seriously, if I told them that a DRUID sent an army of bears to attack the platinum mine, they’d be perfectly happy. Having an army of bears on the platinum mine’s random encounter table on the other hand…
benher

@2 Certainly, because we all know that the Chinese, Americans, Norse, are such righteous stalwart protectors of our ocean friends.

It wasn’t a funny joke 10 seasons ago on the Simpsons either.
oasisob1

This photo and story looks propagandashopped.
Takuan

lost us there Ben
Modusoperandi

Frogmarch: what they don’t tell you is that the moving targets are in the moving vehicle with the sniper. It’s the worst roadtrip ever.
GeekMan

@OASISOB1 – I’m adding that word to my personal dictionary.
Pam Rosengren

Awesome, but possibly making light of something nastier than you think.

There is a possibility that the ‘evil’ Somali pirates are retaliating for the practice of foreign ships dumping toxic waste off its failed-state lawless shores, and cleaning out oil tanks there. This is killing the marine life, and endangering the livelihoods of many Somalis.

This is one of many references to what I am talking about http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article418665.ece
Anonymous

Why would the dolphins help the country that drove their cousins, the Yangtze River Dolphins, to extinction? Maybe they were blackmailed. “Protect our ships or you are next!”
Anonymous

And then the Chinese fishing boat captured all of the dolphins and ate them on the spot. The end.
Thundarr the Barbarian

@26

shame on the topic dumpers, and shame on the pirates for kidnapping innocent folks and holding them for million dollar ransom.

unfortunately for them, when they chose to stick guns in people’s faces and demand money to not kill them, the forfeit any righteousness they ever had. imo, they forfeit their lives.