Dolphins •

Dolphin Sanctuary for Aquarium Residents

June 17, 2016 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

The Baltimore Aquarium decided to create a dolphin sanctuary.

The Baltimore Aquarium is searching for a place where to release the eight dolphins that until now have lived only in closed tanks. This would be the first time when an aquarium plans to release dolphins back into the ocean, and the action is scheduled to take place by 2020.

The Ethical Treatment of Animals agency received the news with great joy and considered it to be of great importance.

The aquarium officials take into consideration several options for the dolphin sanctuary location, among which the Florida Keys and the Caribbean.

The reservation will have a full-time staff, isolation pools for medical care, a temporary refuge, barriers to stop breeding, and must be placed in the clean waters of a temperate climate area. The dolphin sanctuary will have a surface of a couple of acres.

Out from the eight dolphins, only one of them swam in ocean water. The rest of seven were born at the aquarium.

Their ages are from 7 to 44 years old. The dolphins stopped to be part of shows in 2012, but they remained on the aquarium premises.

In the last years, the aquarium started to evaluate other options for its dolphins, as the public lost interest and became more critical towards live animal shows.

Another two companies that used elephants in entertainment purposes had to retire the animals because of public concerns about animal cruelty.

SeaWorld also became a negative example when they decided to phase out one of their most famous animals. The decision was followed by declining attendance, cancellations, partnership losses, and protests, all of which lasted for years.

The dolphins that will be sent to the sanctuary will remain under human supervision for the rest of their lives, as they spent too much time in closed tanks and they are not equipped to live in the wild.

The CEO of the aquarium says that they are aware the movement will be neither easy nor cheap.

The cost of the aquarium set-up may be high; however the cost of dolphin care should be lower because the animals would not need as much attention in the ocean waters as they would in tanks.

In 2011, the death of two newborn dolphins caused the aquarium a loss of $1.9 million.

Three other animal advocacy groups announced their intention to create a seaside sanctuary for belugas, dolphins, and orcas.

The Baltimore National Aquarium will work with state and federal agencies to create the sanctuary and relocate the dolphins.

Image Source: Pixabay

The Mistery Of The Marine Creatures Found Dead On The Beach

February 2, 2016 By Deborah Nielsen 1 Comment

Humpback whale found dead on the seaside.

The marine experts still don’t have an answer for the mistery of the marine creatures found dead on the beach, in Seaside, Oregon, last week.

The tragic event implies the death of no less than five marine creatures: a young Humpback whale, a harbor porpoise and three striped dolphins – all within 48 hours.

According to Keith Chandler, the manager of Seaside Aquarium, the 24-foot humpback whale that was among the five marine mammals that washed ashore last weekend, was moved on Monday to another part of the beach just south of 12th Avenue.

The whale was moved by a team of marine experts from Portland State University and the Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

It’s not exactly common to see five dead creatures washing up on the beaches of the Oregon coast all at once, but it isn’t strange either. The marine experts state that this unfortunate news cannot be regarded as highly unusual or alarming.

Now, the main questions remain: What killed these animals? What caused the death of them? Is anyone going to make a research regarding this mistery, trying to find a legit answer?

As an answer to that, the marine experts sustain that a necropsy would reveal the main causes of the deaths and that they are collecting samples, as we speak.

Chandler adds that the reason why the whale and the other creatures washed up can usually just be attributed to large surf conditions. “Things die out there, and then sometimes they simply wash up in bunches because of what’s happening with the waves.” – he says.

The expert also explained that the deaths could be disease-related, or another issue. But then again, there were no obvious signs of trauma.

Another theory that Chandler supports is that it is strongly possible that the poor animals got caught in a net.

However, nothing is certain until the results of the necropsy will arrive.

In the meantime, the whale will be buried in the sand by Seaside city crews. While the creature is still there, on the beach, Chandler urged the public not to touch it or to let dogs near it. There is a big chance that the whale has bacteria on it.

As reported by The Daily Astorian, a good team from Portland State University and the Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network will take the case and they will conduct a detailed necropsy, in order to determine what caused this tragic event.

The team will collect samples, take measurements and photos as they study the dead animals.

Afterwards, these samples will be sent to PSU for further study.

Image Source: lintvkoin.files.wordpress.com

Study Revealed: Orca Whales Can Learn to Speak Dolphin

October 9, 2014 By Germaine Hicks 2 Comments

Recently, scientists have come up with an astonishing discovery while studying Orca Whales. Recent study revealed that, the ever-fascinating Orca whales can learn to speak dolphin. In fact, the scientists are quite amazed that how an animal from one species can learn the language of other species. The Orca whales, also named as ‘killer whales’ have the ability to ape other marine animals’ species.

The recent study was conducted on 10 Orca whales. The scientists stated that, 3 of them were living with the dolphins and the rest 7 lived with Orca whales. It was observed by the scientists that 3 Orca whales living with bottlenose dolphins were able to speak the language of dolphins while communicating with each other. The sounds include series of clicks and whistles along with other related sounds.

Certainly, the Orca whales have the ability to produce various sounds at different ranges and that seems to be the major reason why Orca whales learn to speak dolphin, researchers claimed. The Orca whales have a wonderful ability to mimic sounds. According to biologists, Orca whales have the ability to produce a unique set of sounds known as ‘dialect’. Actually, this is the time when whales are in groups and they have to communicate with each other.

Moreover, the scientists are not sure how the Orca whales can learn and produce dialects other than their own species. When it comes to producing sounds, whales and dolphins have same learning capacities. Both of them are fast learners and adapt quickly.

Orca whales can learn to speak dolphin in order to communicate with each other, researchers believed. This is because the brain of Orca whales adapts the new scenarios to respond quickly and they have high level of neural plasticity, which enables them to produce and learn sounds they hear.

This study is published in the Journal of Acoustical Society of America.

Dolphins Are Magneto-Sensitive: Researchers Revealed!

September 30, 2014 By Deborah Nielsen Leave a Comment

A new French study revealed this Monday stating that, dolphins are actually attracted towards magnets, spiritually of course.

In order to discover whether dolphins are magneto-sensitive or not, or either talented enough to sense the Earth’s magnetic field, researchers recently experimented that how 6 bottleneck dolphins swim freely independent of responding to barrels having both magnetized and non-magnetized blocks.

The researchers found that dolphins approach more swiftly towards the magnetized block as compare to the non-magnetized one, having the similar density and form, so undistinguishable with echolocation. “Though, we found that the dolphins have the ability to discriminate two stimuli due to their magnetic properties, a precondition to magneto-reception based steering,” researchers stated.

Therefore, if the results hold up to examination, it will be a significant discovery. However, there are several studies revealing that there are some animals that familiarize themselves with the Earth’s magnetic pull. A research was conducted by Baylor College of Medicine researchers’ way back in 2012 stating that pigeons have magneto-sensitive GPS cells in their brains.

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