A beloved dolphin becomes the first individual sea creature protected by law - September 26th, 1904

On this day in 1904, New Zealand issued a government proclamation making it illegal to harm a beloved, wild dolphin named Pelorus Jack or any member of his species.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that gives a quick look it's something that
happened a long time ago. Today, I'm Gabe Lucier and
today's episode is about a helpful dolphin who swam his

(00:22):
way into a country's heart and became one of the
first animals in the modern world to have its life
protected by law. The day was September four. By government proclamation,

(00:44):
New Zealand made it illegal to harm a beloved wild
dolphin named Pelaris Jack or any member of his species.
This was the first time on record that a country
granted legal protection to an individual creature. Wildlife protection laws
were not a thing at that point, so the idea

(01:06):
of declaring an entire species off limits was unheard of,
but the law was made in response to public outcry
and in recognition of Jack's faithful service to the sailors
of New Zealand. If you look at a map, you'll
find Cook straight on the northern end of New Zealand's
South Island. The coastline there juts out in multiple places,

(01:30):
creating a jumble of bays and sounds with just a
narrow channel called the French Pass running through them. In
the past, sailors avoided this route because the currents were
so strong that a ship could be easily pushed off
course and dashed against the rocky coast. But all that
changed with the appearance of Pelaris Jack, a rare white

(01:54):
Riesos dolphin who escorted countless steamerships through the dangerous stretch
of water. Jack was first sighted in eight by a
schooner headed for the French Pass. When the dolphin appeared
in front of the ship, the crew reportedly reached for
their harpoons, but were quickly talked down by the captain's wife.

(02:16):
That would prove to be a good call, because Jack
proceeded to swim alongside the ship for the next twelve hours,
helping to guide it through the treacherous waters, and for
the next twenty four years thereafter, Jack appeared almost daily
and offered the same service to nearly every ship that
came his way. And I say his way, but really

(02:40):
no one is certain whether Jack was a male or female.
The dolphins size was reported to be between nine and
fifteen feet over his twenty four years of activity. Some
argue this indicates Jack was most likely a male, but
female Resos dolphins have been found as large as thirteen feet,
so it's hardly conclusive. The name Pelaris Jack comes from

(03:05):
the Pelaris Sound, a submerged river valley at whose entrance
Jack would routinely wait for ships bound for the city
of Nelson on South Island. Jack would pick up these
Nelson bound steamers at Clay Point, near the top of
Pelaris Sound, and then guide them the five miles or
so down to the French Pass. Jack also helped ships

(03:27):
that departed Nelson on their way to Wellington on New
Zealand's North Island. For these trips, Jack would meet the
ships as they came through the French Pass and then
stay with them all the way to Clay Point. Some
accounts claim that Jack's beat included traveling through the dangerous
French Pass, while others say the dolphin would accompany ships

(03:48):
to or from the pass, but never through it. Regardless
of his exact route, Jack kept a reliable schedule, and
word of his daily appearances spread quickly. The dependable dolphin
grew quite a fan base, and by nineteen o eight,
Pelaris Jack's sightseeing tours had become a cottage industry. Passengers

(04:10):
from around the world came to see Jack in person,
including well known public figures like American author Mark Twain
and British author Frank T. Bullen. There were even overnight
voyages where the phosphorescence of local marine life could turn
Jack's appearance into the kind of dazzling nighttime spectacle you

(04:30):
might find at a theme park today. New Zealanders of
all stripes, whether they worked at sea or not, had
come to view Pelaris Jack as a kind of mascot,
or a pet, or even a friend. So you can
imagine the outrage when the public learned in nineteen o
four that a passenger aboard the S S. Penguin had

(04:51):
pulled a gun on Pelaris Jack. Before you could fire,
the man was wrestled to the deck by crewman and
handed over to the Wellington Police East. However, because there
was no law on the books for the protection of dolphins,
Jack's attempted killer was released. The public was enraged and
demanded that something be done to safeguard their dolphin from

(05:14):
future attacks. This outcry led directly to the order issued
later that year which made it illegal to capture or
harm Pellaris Jack or any other resos dolphin within the
waters of Cook Straight and all its adjacent inlets. Violators
could be fined anywhere between five to one hundred pounds.

(05:35):
Although unconfirmed, the story goes that after the incident, Jack
held a grudge against the S S Penguin. He supposedly
avoided the ship from then on and no longer helped
guide it through the dangerous waters. What we know for
sure is that five years later the SS Penguin crashed
into the rocks and sank there and what was New

(05:59):
Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the twentieth century. The idea
that Jack purposely avoided a specific ship might be hard
to believe, but we do know that he preferred one
kind of ship over another. Jack reportedly wasn't a fan
of ships with wooden hulls, preferring smooth, steel hulled ships instead.

(06:21):
The going theory is that Jack enjoyed riding the pressure
wave created by the ship's bow, and fast moving steamer
ships created bigger, stronger waves for him to ride, and
ride them he did well into his golden years too.
In fact, steamer captains eventually started reducing their speeds so
that the elderly dolphin could keep up with them. The

(06:44):
last appearance of Pelaris Jack was in nineteen twelve, twenty
four years after his initial sighting. Rumors swirled that Jack
had been struck by a passing ship were harpooned by
Norwegian whalers, but the most likely story is that Jack
simply died of old age. A Risos dolphin lives between

(07:05):
twenty to thirty years on average, and Jack was well
within that range, if not beyond it. Newspapers in England
and the United States published obituaries for Pelaris Jack for
several years after his disappearance, but New Zealand papers never did.
They continued to hold out hope that their old friend

(07:26):
was still out there. However, over a century later, the
country finally gave the endearing dolphin the long overdue send
off that he deserved. In a life size bronze statue
of Pelaris Jack was installed at Colonnette Point, overlooking French Pass.

(07:47):
In this way, Jack's still there, greeting passengers as they
travel between Wellington and Nelson. So if you're ever in
the neighborhood, be sure to repay the favor and say hello,
I'm Gabe Louisier, and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. You can
keep up with the show by following us on Twitter, Facebook,

(08:10):
and Instagram at t D I h C and special
thanks today to listener Drew Robinson for recommending today's topic.
If you have any suggestions for a historical event you'd
like to see on the show, you can write to
us at this Day at i heart media dot com.
Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank

(08:32):
you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow
for another Day in History class. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.