They stayed right beside me. And so I went ahead and burst out of the fog. That incident, says Morton, seemed to show that the whales had a clear understanding of her predicament and offered a calculated solution. There's no way that was a coincidence, and I can only believe that it was a form of empathy. All of this is very intangible to measure, but it's there.
Some animals are capable of pulling off complex mental stunts.
For example, no animal is a better escape artist than an orangutan. But they're smart enough to not necessarily induce something right when you're watching them. They'll wait till you leave to do it. But no orangutan is more legendary than the now-deceased Fu Manchu, an honorary member of the American Association of Locksmiths. He once hid some wire in his mouth until it was just the right time to pick the lock on the door to his enclosure.