Memories of Chopper and other deer friends

PETER BUFFA

It is strange, but true. There are some advantages to having been

around a long time. Not many, mind you, but there are a few. This is

one of those times.

You may have heard that we have visitors ... two, to be exact.

They’re 6- feet-long, sleek, shiny and they can swim like a fish,

except they’re not fish. They’re dolphins. Two very pretty bottlenose

dolphins have been tooling around Newport Harbor and the Back Bay,

showing off and giving everyone who sees them the thrill of a

lifetime. They’re hot and they know it.

People have been trying to get up close and personal with them

ever since they showed up, which is what worries Dennis Kelly,

professor of marine biology at Orange Coast College.

“I was down there the other day, and several people were basically

chasing them around in kayaks,” Kelly said in a Pilot story. “Every

time they popped up, they’d paddle over in that direction. You can’t

do that. You can’t harass these animals.”

Personally, when Dennis Kelly says something about dolphins or

anything else that lives in the sea, I believe him, no questions

asked. For one, Dennis and I have worked together a number of times

over the years. Two, he is one of the most respected marine

biologists in the country. And three, he knows more about dolphins

and whales than dolphins and whales do. In fact, a lot of times if

you ask a dolphin a question about why they do certain things, it’ll

say, “I have no idea. Go ask Dennis.” According to Kelly, spotting

dolphins as deep in the Back Bay as these two showoffs have ventured

is highly unusual and a rare opportunity for research.

But interesting as it is, the story sounded familiar. When I read

it, I sat there quietly and scratched my head. I thought and thought,

then I thought some more. In fact, I remember thinking to myself, “I

think this is the most thinking I’ve done in a long time.” Then I

thought of it: “Chopper! That’s it, I think.” I rifled through my

files in the folder labeled “Columns, Real Old, Dolphins & Other

Cetaceans” (my files are very detailed) and there it was -- the story

of Chopper the Dolphin. It was eight years ago that I wrote about

Chopper. Actually, it was a column about the Harbor Patrol.

A good friend of mine, Dick Olson, was a lieutenant with the

Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Division in Newport Beach at the time,

and I asked him if he had any interesting stories about a day in the

life of a Harbor Patrol officer. He did. To start with, there were

the occasional calls about seafaring deer. Apparently, it’s not that

big a deal for deer to wander down to the surf now and then from one

of the nearby canyons. It’s just a leisurely walk on the beach for

the deer until a major wave comes along and sends it hoofs over

haunches into the surf. While the deer flails and frets, the next

wave comes along ... And wham! Bambi heads for Hawaii.

The Harbor Patrol gets the call -- usually an embarrassed one

about “ ... a deer in the water, I swear,” and the adventure of

finding a frantic deer in the water, hauling it into a rescue boat,

when all it wants to do is get as far away from you as possible,

begins. But sea-faring deer are not nearly as odd as the saga of

Chopper the Dolphin.

On a bright spring morning in April 1996, a Harbor Patrol boat in

Huntington Harbor catches sight of a dolphin. The dolphin circles the

boat then draws closer and clearly wants to play. One of the deputies

moves close to the rail, but the dolphin spins away and disappears.

But before he does, the deputy notices a small black device of some

kind attached to its fin.

Before long, the dolphin reappears. Happy to see his little

cetacean buddy, the deputy reaches out to say hello, at which point

the dolphin slams its jaws shut on the deputy’s hand, which makes the

deputy jump around like a wild man and say bad words, really loud. As

they rush the deputy ashore for shots and stitches, a call comes in

from a U.S. Navy unit in San Diego -- the Navy Seals to be exact. One

of their trained dolphins is missing, and its name is “Chopper,”

which comes as no surprise to the deputy who is being patched up in

the emergency room. “Oh, and never mind the device on Chopper’s fin.

There is no device, no such thing. We have no idea what you’re

talking about. Goodbye.”

That’s where the column ended, but not the story. I found out

through Dick Olson not long afterward that somehow, someone from the

Navy saw the column (I was flattered) and that they were madder than

a chief petty officer with a bad hangover and two hours’ sleep. They

said as far as they were concerned, there was no Chopper, no deputy,

no stitches, and they never, ever wanted to hear about it again. OK,

fine. No Chopper, never happened, and I’ll never, ever mention it

again. Actually, who needs stories about chomping dolphins when you

have saltwater deer?

I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs

Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].