Dolphin Feeding at Australian Cafe

Barnacles Cafe in Queensland, Australia, like many other restaurants, had to close due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the cafe’s regular customers weren’t only missing its food and ambiance. They were also looking forward to getting to feed the dolphins that visit the cafe daily again. (1)

Barnacles Cafe sits on Tin Can Bay, north of the Sunshine Coast. According to the cafe’s website, they have a resident pod of nine humpback dolphins. The pod visits the water next to the cafe each day for an 8:00 am feeding. Visitors can pay a $5 entry fee and $5 feeding fee to participate in the feeding session. (1, 2)

Visitors cannot touch the dolphins or swim with them, in accordance with the law. And they’re only able to feed them fish that’s purchased onsite. The cafe says that after the dolphins are fed, they return to the wild for the rest of the day.

Dolphins Deliver Gifts

The human visitors aren’t the only ones who have missed the dolphins’ daily feeding. It seems that the dolphins have missed it as well! On May 18, 2020, Barnacles Cafe posted pictures of the dolphins delivering gifts to the cafe on their Facebook page. They wrote, “The pod has been bringing us regular gifts, showing us how much they’re missing the public interaction and attention.” (3)

The dolphins have delivered coral, sea sponges, and barnacle-covered bottles. The cafe wrote, “They are definitely missing you all,” in their Facebook post. (1, 3)

Emily Shores, a spokeswoman for Barnacles Cafe, told Brisbane Times that this isn’t new behavior for the pod. Mystique, the pod’s leader, “usually brings in coral, wood, rocks – anything he can find. He’s been bringing stuff to us for 10 years,” Shores said. “He brings it in as an offering to us, to get praise, and because we give him a fish. If there is no fish in hand, he sits out in the water just beyond where we can reach.” (2, 4)

Shores believes that the dolphins are bringing more “gifts” to the cafe in response to the decrease in visitors. “I think they thought they had done something wrong because there were no tourists to feed them,” she said. “They have been bringing more and more stuff in, and with [two] more dolphins [joining Mystique] bringing things in, it’s a sign [they miss human interaction] because they know we wait for them to drop their stuff, praise them and feed them.” (4)

Reality Check from an Expert

Barry McGovern, a dolphin behavior expert, weighed in with a pragmatic opinion about the dolphins’ gifts. He thinks it’s unlikely that the dolphins miss the cafe’s visitors. “In all likelihood, they probably don’t miss humans per se. They probably miss a free meal and the routine,” he told 7News. (1)

McGovern isn’t totally ruling it out, though. “Nothing surprises me with dolphins and their behavior anymore,” he said. “They do everything – they use tools, they have culture, they have something similar to names in signature whistles.” (1)

Whether the dolphins are delivering gifts because they miss humans or not, this behavior is still pretty cute. And it’s a great reminder that we still have plenty to learn about the creatures we share the planet with!