were entirely unfazed<\/a>.<\/p>\nDespite the disappointing result, Garagouni says she was wowed by how adept the dolphins were at pilfering their nets. Garagouni began collaborating with fishers to study depredation in the Aegean Sea a decade ago, and even still, the animals\u2019 prowess surprised her. When dolphins come in for a netted meal, she explains, it\u2019s more than a smash-and-grab job. The animals often run methodical missions into the nets until they\u2019ve eaten their fill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe initial shock for me was seeing it happen in real time,\u201d she says. The first time dolphins interacted with their hot sauce\u00ad\u2013spiked nets, two individuals spent no more than 15 minutes tearing 217 holes in the gear.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the victory laps!\u201d Garagouni says. \u201cThe play afterwards, when there were young calves in the group\u2014after they\u2019d get their fill of fish\u2014the young ones would go off and do leaps in the air, almost as if to burn off all this new fuel. If this was our livelihood, I think it would be the most infuriating element to watch. But for me, obviously, it was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
So does this mean dolphins could slurp down Da\u2019Bomb Beyond Insanity on their way to Hot Ones<\/em> glory? Aur\u00e9lie C\u00e9l\u00e9rier, a neuroscientist at the University of Montpellier in France who specializes in marine mammal communication and was not involved in the study, says it\u2019s too early to make that call. While it\u2019s known that many cetaceans, including bottlenose dolphins, lack four of the five primary tastes\u2014they can only pick up salty\u2014spiciness is registered by a different set of sensory cells through chemesthesis. This process, which signals sensations such as pain and heat, is little studied in the species. Other toothed whales do appear to have the hardware required for capsaicin detection, notes C\u00e9l\u00e9rier, but there\u2019s a lot left to learn.<\/p>\nThere could be something else at play in the dolphins\u2019 triumph over spice: cetacean super smarts. From corralling fish with plumes of mud to tenderizing tough prey by tossing it sky high, dolphins are known for a wide variety of intelligent feeding strategies. Their propensity to innovate, combined with the fact that they\u2019re notoriously unfussy eaters, helps them survive, but it\u2019s also partly what puts them into increasing conflict with fishers. The dolphins may simply have figured out a way to break into the spicy nets without making much contact.<\/p>\n
The capsaicin coating didn\u2019t deter dolphins, but intriguingly, it did appear to affect another animal. An unidentified predator, possibly a sea turtle, seal, or shark, tore large holes in the scientists\u2019 plain control nets but not the spicy nets.<\/p>\n
The research team is putting a pin in their red-hot research for now, but Garagouni hopes it will serve as a springboard for others on the quest to outwit dolphins. Even a study that fails, she says, offers helpful clues and leads to new questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fishers around the world are desperate for a reliable way to stop dolphins from plundering their catch. Dolphins\u2019 net burgling\u2014known as depredation\u2014costs fishers income, but it also puts dolphins at risk of injury and entanglement. Proposed solutions to finally win <\/p>\n
…<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":40589,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"acf":{"hero_video_url":null,"hero_video_caption":"","deck":"Fishing nets laced with spice did nothing to deter hungry dolphins, leaving fishers searching in their bid to beat depredation.","authors_group":[{"by_group":"by","contributors_group":[15696]}],"word_count_override":"","podbean1":"","podbean2":"","redirect":"","geolocation":{"address":"Aegean Sea","lat":39.019184,"lng":25.268555,"zoom":14,"place_id":"ChIJqRuedGaclRQRslEXADeMBYk","name":"Aegean Sea"},"related":[21495,17158],"twitterimage":40590,"facebookimage":40588,"twitterdescription":"","edited":[15491],"factchecked":"","code":"","no_old_story_flag":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/custom_news"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40618,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40587\/revisions\/40618"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/15491"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/17158"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}