Worst paragraph in the story:
"I shouldn't do this I know, we are meant to remain scientific," Mr Smith said, "but I actually went into the water with the dolphin and gave it a pat afterwards because she really did save the day."

...I hate that kind of Bureaucratic crap.

Otherwise, cool story.

Anybody who thinks we’re the only anthropomorphizing species in the world is intelligent.

Couldn't resist. Cool story indeed.

The term "anthropomorphism" has etymological roots in the Greek word for "human" (Homo sapiens). Therefore, my response is: of course we're the only species interested in attributing human characteristics to non-human objects, why would any other species be so obsessed with us?

(That said, I would argue that anthropomorphism contributes to our altruistic empathy for other species. In which case, the dolphins' response to beached whales could be regarded as evidence of "zoomorphism".)

Ryan and that James guy who posted above are the kinds of people who know what anthropomorphism means and therefore would have got the joke (note the "couldn't resist"). Now it's accessible to the non-nerd audience - thanks. :(