maybe it means ... nothing?
nothing is actually something, in other words for something to mean nothing, it means that there is a "reason" but their actions now mean "nothing", so what is that reason.
Seinfeld was a show about nothing, but we know in reality it was allot of something that = to nothing. But for it to = nothing, we must understand their perspective for seeing it as a show about nothing, it was their understanding that others are busy with things that are something, making their activities, nothing, so in relative terms, their nothing was someones something.
Now back to the dolphins, the actions of these 100,000 all of a sudden means nothing, but explain the something it can sometimes mean, to understand their current actions as nothing.