A report [article link] Tuesday that dolphins beached themselves by the "hundreds" in Manilla Bay, The Philippines. Officials are estimating at least 200 dolphins have beached themselves near the towns of Pilar and Abucay. Officials say that this is usually a sign of a underwater disturbance such as an underwater earthquake. They become disoriented and can't get their bearings, Philippine officials say. If their eardrums are damaged, like any mammal, they will float to the surface. At least three of the dolphins have died as Aquatic officials are trying to save the lives of all the dolphins beaching themselves.

This is behavior I have seen before. When I served in the U.S. Navy (many years ago), I was stationed in Naples, Italy. A pilot whale beached himself at the beach in Naples. He was about 15 feet long, as I recall and weighed about two tons. People there tried to save him by keeping him wet and a bulldozer was brought to the beach to push him back out to sea. They were successful in doing just that. But, the pilot whale came right back to the beach and this time, he died while they tried to push him back out a second time. This above dolphin episode made me remember that incident. There were Italians, Swedes, Germans and Americans all working together trying to save that whale. None of us could understand each other. But, we all understood we had to try and save that pilot whale's life. We were all silent as we just looked at the dead whale that late afternoon. We all knew we tried our best to save him. But, that didn't seem to matter at the time.