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A pod of dolphins were being praised for providing a protective barrier around a group of swimmers who were being threatened by a great white shark off the northeastern coast of New Zealand. Rob Howes and three other lifeguards were on a training swim about 100 metres off shore at Ocean Beach near here when the dolphins raced in and herded the group together. "They started to herd us up, they pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us," Howe said Tuesday. When he tried to drift away from the group, two of the bigger dolphins...

Grass Valley , Nevada County -- He's no longer Ricky Williams the football player. He plans to become Ricky Williams the holistic healer. It's been more than 10 months since Williams, one of the premier running backs in the National Football League, last ran off tackle for the Miami Dolphins and four months since he suddenly announced his retirement at age 27. Then he dropped from sight. But now Williams has turned up about as far away from professional football as you can get, as a student of the ancient Indian medical system known as Ayurveda. In the Sierra foothills,...

Dolphins 'protect' lifeguards from great white Four New Zealand lifeguards say a pod of dolphins provided a protective barrier around them when they were threatened by a great white shark. Rob Howes and three other lifeguards were on a training swim about 100 metres off shore at Ocean Beach on NZ's north-eastern coast when the dolphins raced in and herded the swimmers together. "They started to herd us up, they pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us," Howe said. When he tried to drift away from the group, two of the bigger dolphins herded him...

MINA SALMAN PORT, Bahrain - The dolphins deployed as underwater sentinels to the Arabian Gulf region by the U.S. Navy (news - web sites) last year have been valuable in protecting coalition ships and piers against terrorist attacks, a Navy spokesmen said Friday. The dolphins, brought to the region in spring 2003, are trained to detect, locate and mark a threat swimmer or diver and alert their human handlers. "The mission is going well. The dolphins have provided a very valuable layer of defense here," said Lt. Josh Frey, spokesman for the 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain. "We...

TOKYO (AFP) - Fuji, a mother dolphin that lost 75 percent of her tail due to a mysterious disease, is jumping once again with the help of what is believed to be the world's first artificial fin. The 34-year-old dolphin held at Japan's largest aquarium in the southern island of Okinawa wears the rubber fin for about 20 minutes a day allowing her to jump and to swim at the same speed of other dolphins. "We are very grateful. Although she can swim without the artificial fin, the speed is very slow and she certainly cannot jump without it," said...

DAVIE, Fla. - Miami Dolphins coach Dave Wannstedt called it quits Tuesday midway through a dismal season that began with the retirement of Ricky Williams and has left the team with the NFL's worst record.

The world's whales, porpoises and dolphins have no standing to sue President George W Bush over the US Navy's use of sonar equipment that harms marine mammals, a federal appeals court has ruled. The ruling was made by a three-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, widely considered one of the most liberal and activist in the country. It said it saw no reason why animals should not be allowed to sue but said they had not been granted that right. "If Congress and the President intended to take the extraordinary step of authorising...

PUNA, Hawaii (Wireless Flash) -- Dolphins may have the power to alter our DNA and switch our genes "on" and "off" to help us heal. That's the fishy claim of dolphin researcher Dr. Michael Hyson, who says that the mammals can generate sound and electromagnetic fields that can have a positive effect on human DNA to help treat diseases like autism, cerebral palsy and depression. Although Hyson can't explain how dolphins know which genes to turn "on" and "off" to treat humans and admits "it's a hypothesis," he claims dolphins have treated humans this way for thousands of years. In...

MIAMI -- A man is being treated for injuries after he jumped into a tank with a mother dolphin and her baby, police said. The dolphins at the Seaquarium are bottlenose dolphins like this one. Miami-Dade police said the 49-year-old man and a friend pulled up to the back of the Miami Seaquarium on a boat. They both jumped into a dolphin tank where a mother and baby dolphin were swimming, according to investigators. Police said the man showed up Thursday at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he is undergoing surgery for injuries he received from the mother dolphin. The man...

ESPN's Chris Mortensen reports the Miami Dolphins have won their grievance with retired RB Ricky Williams. Arbitrator Richard Bloch ruled Williams must return $8.6 million in signing bonus money to the Dolphins.

(09-09) 11:25 PDT MIAMI (AP) -- The Miami Dolphins' opening game against the Tennessee Titans will be played Saturday instead of Sunday because of approaching Hurricane Ivan. Ivan could reach southern Florida as soon as Sunday, forecasters said. The Dolphins and Titans had been scheduled to kick off at 1 p.m. EDT that day.

HUTCHINSON ISLAND, Fla. - Thirty dolphins stranded on a Florida beach were euthanized Saturday after experts and volunteers spent hours trying to get them to swim back to the ocean. The roughtooth dolphins were among a group of 36 dolphins that beached themselves Friday on Hutchinson Island, north of Palm Beach. With limited space at the area's lone dolphin-care facility, experts decided they could nurse only six of the animals back to health. The remaining 30 dolphins, including four calves, were given lethal injections. "It was a very painful, very emotional and very difficult decision to make," said Steve McCulloch,...

<p>MIAMI (AP) - Ricky Williams has told the Miami Dolphins that he's retiring after just five years in the NFL, The Miami Herald reported on its Web site Sunday.</p> <p>Williams said he was overjoyed by his decision.</p> <p>"You can't understand how free I feel," Williams told the Herald in a cell phone interview Saturday before boarding a plane in Hawaii and heading to Asia to begin several months of travel.</p>

NFL Shocker: Williams To Retire? Is he another Robert Smith? Is he bothered by persistent drug rumors? Whatever the reason, Dolphins star running back Ricky Williams, 27, has told the team he is retiring after just five NFL seasons, ESPN's Dan Le Batard reports.

<p>California.</p> <p>Well, we may send our blessings, but we sure didn't send much of our cash to help out our neighbors in this time of tragedy.</p> <p>I would have thought that an unplanned bonanza of free football would have led to an unfettered bounty of generosity from the fans and merchants who understood that their gain Monday night was someone else's loss. Someone else's incredible loss.</p>

"You see that son, when you tackle someone, you can't grab his face mask, that's a penalty." Such was the quote coming from over my shoulder. I turned to smile, a faint remembrance of a former day getting the same instructions from my father. At that moment, something strange hit me. At times, in your life you'd be amazed at what you don't miss as there until it isn't, or vice versa. What hit me at that moment early in first quarter, was the preponderance of children in the stands. Lots of them. Children clamoring all over bleachers. Mom's spending...

<p>Dolphins linebacker Junior Seau insists he meant no harm when he suggested the way to stop former teammate LaDainian Tomlinson is to feed him fried chicken and watermelon.</p> <p>Tomlinson, whose Chargers face the Dolphins on Monday night, could not immediately be reached for comment. The Dolphins had no immediate word on whether Seau would be disciplined for the remark.</p>

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Sep 10, 2003 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- The U.S. Navy has replaced anti-mine systems with dolphins in the Persian Gulf, the World Tribune.com reported Wednesday. The dolphins are said to be capable of detecting explosives and enemy frogmen. The commanders said the dolphin's natural sonar system is more effective than man-made technology. Naval commanders said the dolphins are meant to protect the U.S. naval presence in Bahrain, headquarters of the Fifth Fleet, as well as other areas of the Gulf. The Fifth Fleet has brought dolphins to replace sea lions, which were used...

Questions Surface Over Import of Dolphins to Mexico; IFAW Calls For Immediate Quarantine, Considers Legal Action 8/13/03 5:36:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National and International desks Contact: Chris Cutter of IFAW, 508-744-2066, e-mail: ccutter@ifaw.org MEXICO CITY, Aug. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The International Fund for Animal Welfare ( http://www.IFAW.org ) today called on the Government of Mexico to immediately place recently imported wild dolphins from the Solomon Islands in protective quarantine. IFAW also announced it is considering legal action based on information the group has collected over the last weeks, and the refusal thus far of the Mexican Government to...

The Associated Press MANAMA, Bahrain Aug. 11 — The U.S. Navy has deployed highly trained dolphins to the region to help protect U.S. and coalition ships and piers against terrorist attacks by providing early warning of hostile swimmers. "If there are any uninvited guests swimmers and divers trying to cause harm to U.S. and coalition naval assets, the dolphins can detect and locate them," said Lt. Josh Frey, a spokesman of the 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, on Monday. Citing security reasons, Lt. Cmdr. Martin Anderson declined to divulge how many dolphins have been brought in, when they...