| NAME: | Pelorus Jack |
| SPECIES: | Risso’s dolphin |
| DATE: | 1888 to 1912 |
| LOCATION: | Admiralty Bay, New Zealand |
| SITUATION: | Hazardous passage through rocky waters |
| WHO WAS SAVED: | Numerous steamships |
| LEGACY: | Worldwide tourist attraction, the most famous dolphin in New Zealand history |
The conflation and exaggeration of folklore rides the bow waves with Pelorus Jack, the most famous dolphin in New Zealand history.
Pelorus Jack was a rare, albino-white Risso’s dolphin—a beakless cetacean who looks similar to a pilot whale—who for twenty-four years accompanied ships across Admiralty Bay in New Zealand. Several photos were taken of Pelorus Jack, and his (or her) distinctive coloring and species made the animal easy to recognize. Actually, the dolphin’s sex was never determined, but “he” was always considered male, and he grew to be about fourteen feet long.
Some said that Pelorus Jack was a savior, and that he appeared next to steamships to help them navigate a particularly dangerous, rocky passage. Others said that Pelorus Jack was simply having fun. He was a lone dolphin, presumably orphaned, who met up with passing ships because he loved to ride their bow waves—the faster, the better.
Whatever Pelorus Jack was doing, it’s also true that during his tenure, from 1888 to 1912, only one ship was lost in that part of the bay. And as his reputation grew, Pelorus Jack’s reliable presence turned him into a worldwide celebrity and tourist attraction, one who was promoted in guidebooks and on postcards. People booked passage along the route just to see him, including Mark Twain. Songs were written about him, and a candy bar and a ship were named after him. Today his image is the logo of New Zealand’s interisland ferry.
Whether Pelorus Jack actually saved anyone is doubtful, or perhaps it’s a matter of interpretation. However, Pelorus Jack himself was saved in 1904 when, due to his celebrity status, he became the first individual sea creature to be protected by law.
Then, after twenty-four years, Pelorus Jack suddenly stopped appearing next to ships. Various tales surfaced about how someone had shot or harpooned him, but none of these are regarded as particularly credible. Instead, Pelorus Jack likely died of old age, while his amazing story lived on to feed the life-saving reputation of dolphins.
THE REWARDS OF MERCY
Pelorus Jack first appeared in 1888. The traditional story is that he accompanied the schooner Brindle as it crossed Cook Strait and approached the treacherous French Pass: This narrow strait south of D’Urville Island was, and is, infamous for its jutting rocks and surging currents, which have wrecked many a ship traveling between New Zealand’s two main islands and the principal towns of Wellington and Nelson.
Upon seeing the dolphin in front, the Brindle’s crew wanted to harpoon it, perhaps confusing it with a whale. The captain’s wife convinced them not to, and as if in gratitude for this mercy, Pelorus Jack supposedly remained ahead of the ship for the next twelve hours, seeming to guide it safely through the dangerous passage.
After this, Pelorus Jack appeared regularly in front of ships. He arrived night and day, sometimes several times a day, almost as if he were a copilot lying in wait for ships to arrive. He seemed to prefer larger steamships, and he would sometimes rub against the steel plates. One local who delivered mail to the steamers said Pelorus Jack was so friendly he would rub against his dinghy, nearly capsizing it.
Always, Pelorus Jack darted and leapt with startling quickness and evident joy, while at other times he appeared to sail unmoving in the pressure wave. Though steamer captains didn’t pretend to “follow” Jack, they still regarded his presence as a good omen.
In 1911, James Cowan wrote a contemporary account of Pelorus Jack that described his “uncanny, almost human sociability” and how he would appear “like a sea-god at the steamer’s bows.”
Nevertheless, local eyewitnesses said Pelorus Jack never actually entered French Pass. The dolphin accompanied ships only up to the pass’s north entrance (or joined them after they exited), and he typically plied the same six-mile stretch of Cook Strait, remaining with boats for about twenty minutes or so.
In other words, from what we can tell, Pelorus Jack was inordinately fond of passing ships, but not necessarily in any different way than any other dolphin who rides a boat’s bow waves as it traverses the dolphin’s home waters.
THE WRECK OF THE PENGUIN
Legends, though, are born from tragedy, and the tragic fate of the steamer Penguin became one of the telling anecdotes of the Pelorus Jack canon.
In the early 1900s, possibly in 1904, the story is that a passenger on the Penguin took a shot at Pelorus Jack, hitting him. According to some accounts, the passenger was drunk; in others, it was the ship itself that bumped the dolphin.
Either way, Pelorus Jack survived, but from that day on, and for years afterward, the dolphin never accompanied the Penguin again. Until, that is, the day of February 12, 1909, when the Penguin sank in the Tory Channel due to a heavy storm.
All seventy-six passengers on the steamer died except for one, Ada Hannam, who said she had felt anxious and uneasy earlier that day when she spotted Pelorus Jack unexpectedly leaping in front of the Penguin’s bow.
Why, people wondered, had Pelorus Jack appeared on this particular day? Was it a coincidence? Or was he warning the Penguin—or dooming it? This story captured the unnerving possibility that the famous Pelorus Jack might actually possess what everyone said: godlike powers of foresight, help, and retribution.
MAORI LEGENDS
In fact, New Zealand’s Maori peoples believed Pelorus Jack was a god. According to their myths, the ocean god Tangaroa created many taniwhas, or sea deities. Taniwhas live in the ocean and might offer help or cause trouble. One taniwha, Kaikai-a-waro, was assigned to protect and guide their canoes as they crossed Cook Strait and navigated its perils. The Maori believed that Pelorus Jack was one of Kaikai-a-waro’s embodied forms.
According to James Cowan, the Maori tell many stories, going back hundreds of years, of Kaikai-a-waro aiding Maori in distress, either rescuing them from drowning or guiding their canoes safely to shore. When summoned respectfully, Kaikai-a-waro can emerge at any time from the underwater cave where it lives.
In addition, the Maori believed that, as an embodied taniwha, Pelorus Jack was divinely protected. One risked self-destruction to harm or kill the animal.
The popular and ancient stories about Pelorus Jack have some remarkably similar elements, leading us to wonder if perhaps the Maori myths influenced the popular imagination. Or perhaps the similarities reflect a universal human desire to feel protected by divine nature and her creatures, which inspires a moral obligation to protect them in turn.
Certainly, the behavior of dolphins suggests that they possess a conscious intelligence and a sense of empathy that can, on occasion, lead them to help humans in trouble. As with Arion (see page 249), it may only take one exceptional animal or one life-saving moment to set the wheels of human myth-making in motion.
Today, as James Cowan wrote, we may also share “a feeling akin to the old Maori belief that the lone dolphin of Pelorus has something of the supernatural about him. Certainly he is no ordinary creature of the sea.”