Dolphins in Western Australia have learned how to ransack crab pots, never-before-seen footage revealed after its release Thursday.
Footage shared by Dolphin Discovery Center showed the “craziest and most intriguing dolphin behavior” the team had ever seen. The gang of bottlenose dolphins living off the shores of Koombana Bay have figured out how to steal bait from crab fishermen’s pots, according to LiveScience.
Even after the fishermen tried their best to stop the dolphins from stealing the bait, the gang figured out all the changes we humans made, and adapted immediately to the challenge.
“The most basic version is that the dolphin grabs the bait which sits on a hook or metal pin inside the crab pot. So essentially the dolphins pull the fish off the pin or break it down into edible pieces,” filmmaker Axel Grossman, who volunteers with the center, told LiveScience. “They learned to turn crab pots around using their rostrum (jaws) and bodies, so they could access the bait more easily.”
And it’s not just the bait in the nets the dolphins are after. Some of these ocean-based criminals even figured out how to break into the plastic containers used to hold the bait, by unlatching it with their rostrum or teeth. (RELATED: Chris, Liam, And Luke Hemsworth Are Funding Research To Revive Extinct Wild Animal)
The solution, for now, is mesh bags that dolphins can’t seem to figure out how to open yet. But there’s a concern that, if they are hungry, they’ll just come back, learn how to break into the mesh pouch, and carry on their crime spree.