The Dolphins Have Returned to Italy / Nature Is Healing

Submission 17,190

Part of a series on COVID-19 Pandemic. [View Related Entries]

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About

The Dolphins Have Returned to Italy, also known as Nature is Healing, is an image macro series featuring jokes about reports of dolphins swimming in Italian waters following the country's lockdown due to the coronavirus, indicating nature's flourishing in humanity's absence because of a lack of pollution. After these reports went viral in March 2020, a series of memes comparing "dolphins returning to Italy" to absurd returns in other countries associated with that country's culture.

Origin

In March 2020, following Italy's lockdown over the coronavirus, some began posting on social media about the natural world thriving without human interference. One of the earliest includes a post by Twitter user @ikaveri. On March 16th, 2020, they tweeted,^[1] "Here's an unexpected side effect of the pandemic – the water's flowing through the canals of Venice is clear for the first time in forever. The fish are visible, the swans returned." Within one month, the tweet received more than 1 million likes and 281,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

The following day, Twitter user @b8taFPS shared videos of dolphins in Venice, Italy. They wrote, "Venice hasn't seen clear canal water in a very long time. Dolphins showing up too. Nature just hit the reset button on us." The tweet received more than 1.1 million views, 37,000 likes and 12,000 retweets in less than one month (shown below).

On March 20th, Facebook user dw.euromaxx posted the video "Dolphins have returned to Sardinia's coast." The video received more than 15,000 views, 825 reactions and 180 shares in less than one month (shown below).

On March 20th, the fact-checking website Snopes ^[2] rated the claims that "dolphins have returned" a "mixture. They wrote:

What's True
Dolphins and swans were indeed spotted in some of Italy's waterways after the nationwide lockdown was imposed.

What's False
Dolphins and swans swimming in Italy's waterways were not necessarily new phenomena related to reduced human activity during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Days later, parodies of the reports began appearing on Reddit. On March 23rd, Redditor^[3] treefood3 posted a meme that shows dolphins in the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Canada. They wrote, "Because of lack of pollution in Ottawa, the dolphins have returned to Rideau Canal." The post received more than 2,400 points (95% upvoted) in less than one month (shown below, left).

On April 4th, Redditor^[4] xXxD02AVIDxXx posted a parody of the account that shows extraterrestrials "returning" to Egypt to complete the pyramids, referencing the conspiracy theory that ancient aliens built monuments in Egypt. They captioned the image, "The dolphins have returned to Italy. Meanwhile in Egypt." The post received more than 44,000 points (97% upvoted) and 230 comments in less than one week (shown below, center).

The following day, iFunny ^[5] user _KingWiggler_ posted an illustration of Big Foot walking in the wilderness. They captioned the image, "Dolphins have returned to Italy! Meanwhile in Canada." The post received more than 83,000 reactions and 700 comments in less than one week (shown below, right).