The mysterious dolphins of Puerto Leguízamo, Putumayo – MiPutumayo NEWS

RadioNational – This amazing species has its sound codes to call or to be called at great distances.

Esmeralda Ramirez

In Puerto Leguízamo, a municipality located in lower Putumayo, in southern Colombia, is the La Paya National Natural Park, where the Murui people live, an indigenous community that lives in harmony with the ecosystem.

This enchanted place “is a paradise” says Daniela Lozano, a Murui girl who is part of the Tucunare reservation, and who this time will accompany Rio’s next adventure in the ‘Radio laboratory: children teach us’, where she will teach us about the mysterious dolphins that inhabit the fresh water of the Amazon River.

In the next chapter, Daniela will describe the mystical and respectful relationship that her community has with dolphins based on stories, experiences, and tips for making sightings and taking care of the environment of these incredible beings.

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A species aquatic

Dolphins are not fish, they are mammals of aquatic life, they are warm-blooded and breathe out of the water like us, their reproduction is sexual, the females have one-year gestations. When they have their baby dolphin, they nurse it for several months in motion. The upbringing of the small dolphins is exclusive to the mothers until they are 5 years old and little by little they separate from this bond, until they reach maturity and awaken their interest in mating. .

River dolphins are descendants of the ancestral sea dolphins. A long time ago when the sea was more extensive and covered the Amazon, they adapted and remained inhabiting this humid tropical forest flooded by the mighty rivers that surround this great region.

The pink dolphins of the Amazon are not the only ones that inhabit this river, there are also the gray and silver dolphins, Daniela tells us, the stories of her community tell of the precautions that must be taken when approaching these beings, because she says that “no all dolphins are good, there are dolphins that take girls”.

Among legends Y traditions

The stories that the grandparents have told him about the indigenous worldview indicate that the pink dolphin was sent by a god who was envious of all the harmony and happiness that lived in this place, “everyone there is good” he said, so he sent the pink dolphin to generate tensions and problems among all the inhabitants inside and outside the river, from there derive the stories that he shares with us from his community regarding the dolphins.

Since ancient times, the ability of dolphins to relate to humans has been well known. In Greek mythology it is said that they were pirates turned into dolphins or dolphins by Dionysus, after they wanted to sell him as a slave.

In the representations of Poseidon, god of the seas, he appears surrounded by dolphins and seahorses, since then dolphins have been very close to human beings, thanks to their beauty, expressiveness and sonority they manage to attract our attention, one cannot be indifferent to them. The presence of dolphins, however, has a mysterious side, little known, and that is that the males are very territorial, sexual and promiscuous, they fight to take the females and copulate for pleasure, beyond the reproductive purpose.

They have great hearing capacity, their ears are like radars as they use echolocation to search for their food. They communicate with resonant sounds that they create with the air pressure in the blowhole, an upper hole through which they inhale and exhale the air out of the water, every five minutes or so, each sound they emit is a code, like a sound track, which they use for each situation.

Each mother teaches her baby dolphin its sound identity and baptizes it with a “name” or a specific sound from birth and thus they communicate. With time and practice they manage to produce more than thirty different whistles, each member of the group has their sound codes to call or to be called at great distances. They also communicate with their agile body, dancing and jumping, and with the movements of their fins they manage to express different emotions as they are very sensitive.

Their hydrodynamic bodies make them fast and flexible, thanks to which they are excellent swimmers and acrobats in the water. Powered by the powerful muscles of their tail, they glide effortlessly over great distances, at an average speed of 40 kilometers per hour. They have highly developed senses of touch and hearing, compensating for the fact that the other senses, sight, taste and smell, are very limited.

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Photo: Laura Rios

touring the Amazon with River

Rio, the extraordinary character who lives on Radio Nacional de Colombia, embarks on a journey based on a dream with the dolphins, they give him a very important message from a totem, a ritual object that combines human and divine symbols and energies.

The message is about the importance of taking actions to stop mistreating and contaminating the waters and their inhabitants, we do not see what is happening beyond what the eye can see, but at the bottom of the rivers and seas there is life, and many Species are at risk due to the pollution and devastating consumption that we as humanity are causing.

The invitation from Río and our guest is to open awareness because we are all part of the same unit, we have the opportunity to share this land with other beings, we have the responsibility for the well-being of the environment and relationships.

Once again, boys and girls teach us to recognize the beauty that surrounds us, to contemplate nature and to be grateful for being on this wonderful planet as a daily ritual. Eloisa, the host of the Radio laboratory, will teach us how to make a totem, an object full of meaning and sense, to connect the spirituality that derives from contact with Mother Earth, as our indigenous ancestors have done.

This episode seeks to generate bonds of care and protection against the threats suffered by the dolphins of the Amazon, apart from the contamination and fragmentation of populations due to the construction of dams and illegal mining with dredges, which causes large amounts of mercury and serious damage. to the entire ecosystem.

This species has the human species as predators, many are sacrificed to use them as bait in the speck catfish fishing, this puts the conservation of the species and the balance of ecosystems at risk since they help regulate fish populations and symbiosis from the river.

If you want to know more about dolphins, don’t miss the next installment of ‘Radio laboratory: children teach us’, you are invited to watch next Sunday the new video of Children teach us, about the mysterious dolphins, here on national radio from Colombia.

The mysterious dolphins of Puerto Leguízamo, Putumayo – MiPutumayo NEWS