When long-line fishing boat captain Rodney Solomon reeled in an air-to-air missile 50 miles (80km) off Panama City in Florida, he did what anyone would have done – strapped it to his boat and enjoyed the remaining 10 days of his fishing trip.

After returning from his trip, Solomon reported his unusual find to the local fire department only to find out that the missile was live and could have gone off any time.

Mr Solomon told local news organisation WTSP that fishermen are used to being in danger and are usually unflappable. “We’re fishermen, nothing scares us!”

But he admits that this experience “was kind of a fright“.

“It was like, ‘wow man, you all took a big chance bringing in this missile, he said. “You had it on your boat for 10 days and any time it could have exploded on you.”

Sidewinder

Solomon had assumed that the missile had gone off earlier since he found a hole in it.

“He actually came to the fire station and told us he had caught a Tomahawk missile, said local fire chief, Derryl O’Neal, “but it turned out not to be – it was an air-to-air guided missile, known as a Sidewinder“.

The firemen quickly evacuated the area around the missile until and the deadly device could eventually be dismantled without causing any damages. The missile was caught in or near a zone used by defence forces for testing.

Local fishermen are being advised not to bring in any similar discovery, but to alert authorities to its exact location.

Bottle nosed dolphins living along the coast of Florida are getting used to supplement their diet by snatching bait from fishing lines or circle recreational anglers practising catch-and-release. Some dolphins have even made a habit out of routinely approaching humans to beg for food.

Scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service have now been able to show that this behaviour is spread down through generations of dolphins.

“We are able to document lineage, from grandmother to mother to calf, all following fishing boats and taking thrown-back fish,” says Jessica Powell, a National Marine Fisheries Service biologist.

Dolphins begging for food might be an endearing sight, but approaching humans in this fashion means taking a great risk. In 2006, three dead Sarasota Bay dolphins turned out to have fishing lures stuck inside them.

“Whenever animals become reliant on humans for food, it puts them at jeopardy,” says Dr. Randy Wells, director of dolphin research at Sarasota’s Mote Marine Laboratory. “If they are coming to boats or piers to get fish, they are swimming through a maze of lines, hooks and lures and those lines are designed to be invisible under water.”

Some dolphins do however seem to have figure out how to stay clear of harms way. A bottlenose dolphin nicknamed “Beggar” has been soliciting free meals in a narrow stretch of Intracoastal Waterway near Nokomis Beach since he was a juvenile 20 years ago. Despite routinely swimming just inches from boat propellers, the skin of Beggar’s 8 feet long body is free of major scars. Hopefully, the same is true for the inside of his 400 pound body.

As if the menace of razor sharp propeller blades, invisible fishing lines and jagged double hooks weren’t enough, bottlenose dolphins also stand the risk of encountering anglers who may not appreciate having their bait or catch snatched away by a hungry cetacean. A commercial fisherman out of Panama City, Florida has been sentenced to two years in prison after throwing pipe bombs at dolphins trying to steal his catch. Off Panama City, tour operators have been feeding dolphins for years to assure their presence at the popular “swim-with-the-dolphins” tours.

Feeding the Florida dolphins is illegal under both state and federal law, with federal law banning wild dolphin feeding in the early 1990s. Feeding wild dolphins can also be dangerous and the abovementioned “Beggar” dolphin has for instance sent dozens of overfriendly patters to the hospital for stitches and antibiotics.

Hand-feeding aside, a severe red tide in 2005 seems to have made the habit of interacting with humans for food much more widespread than before among the Florida dolphins. The red tide wiped out 75-95 percent of the dolphin’s usual prey fish and the hungry dolphins eventually realised that they could fill their bellies by picking bait fish off fishing lines.

“We suspect that the dolphins were
hungry,” Wells explains. “Their main prey
base was gone. Seeing a fresh pin fish
dangling from a line might look pretty
good to them. And once they learned
that anglers are a source of food, they
don’t forget that very quickly.”