Species News

For a Holiday look at adoptable dolphins in Moray Firth, today Charlie Phillips tells us about Rainbow the dolphin.

Rainbow (ID#31) has been known to us for a long time, Aberdeen University first identified her in 1990 and she is a lovely adult female dolphin. She has a few marks on her dorsal fin, the most noticeable is a nick about two thirds down the fin and much smaller dimples above the nick. Rainbow is also unusual in that both her jaws are the same length; most bottlenoses have a slightly shorter top jaw.

Like Pepper, Coral’s life and family tree have been marked by human interactions beginning with his mother, Silver. Silver was originally called Long John Silver because she was missing half of her tail fluke. It is thought Silver missing part of her fluke is the result of human interaction. Silver’s first calf and Coral’s older sister, Beltane, died in 1987 a year before Coral was even born. Beltane was found dead after eating mackerel contaminated by red algae and was sadly one of many who met with this fate that year.

Coral was born the following year, in 1988, and in his first year survived an attack by orca whales. Coral has several scars or rake marks on his fluke as a reminder of this terrible attack.These black lines are spaced out exactly like the orca whales teeth. These rake marks are fairly common on the tail fluke as that’s the means of propulsion to escape an attack. The orca knows that if they can damage the tail flukes, they stand a better chance of getting the whale.

At the age of three Coral suffered the loss of his mother, Silver; she was found dead on Long Island due to entanglement in fishing gear. Since then Coral has grown into a very sociable humpback often sighted swimming with other whales. In fact, he’s become so social that he was spotted accompanying a dying right whale in 2005.

The article reporting their rare association said, “They are an odd couple. A dying right whale, limping along with half a fluke and a healthy humpback swimming by her side... In March, the right whale was hit by a 42-foot recreational vessel off Cumberland Island in Georgia... When she dies, it will deepen the tragedy that has evolved over the past 10 months in which 5 percent of all reproductively active female right whales have been killed, mostly by humans”

As rare as this pair was, it was also ironic that Coral was spending time with a female who, like his mother, had lost part of her fluke due to a vessel strike. And we know that it was Coral because the tuna spotter that sighted this odd right and humpback pair took photos from above. Fortunately, Coral has some rare scaring on behind his blowhole so it was easy to identify which humpback was traveling with the injured right whale – even from above which is not the norm.

We believe this scaring occurred in the breeding grounds as a result of male rowdy behavior while competing for females.

Coral himself also became entangled in fishing gear in 2005 – he was able to free himself from that gear. He was first sighted with gear on him in October and then was seen gear-free in November. We have continued to see Coral, just as social as ever. In fact this year we saw him off of Chatham, way down on the back side of Cape Cod. You can keep up with Coral's future escapades on Twitter

Today we are highlighting Sundance the dolphin, another adoptable dolphin from the Moray Firth in Scotland. To keep up with all the sightings updates for this population check out Charlie Phillips' blog.

Sundance (ID#105) is 20 years old this year and is a big, confident, fully grown male dolphin who is competing with other big males over territory and access to females. This is really showing in the amount of new dorsal fin and body scratches that he is picking up year on year.

Whenever Sundance arrives in the area you can really feel his “presence” such is his attitude, size and confidence. Although for years I would see him hanging out a lot with Moonlight, a lovely female, he also enjoys the company of other girls as Moonlight has another set of friends that she spends time with. He often is in the company of younger male dolphins who he has great fun with, showing them just what being a wild, free powerful dolphin is all about.

He is still the most exciting dolphin to have around – I have some great photographs of him enjoying social time with other dolphins, he has a great sense of humour and never passes up an opportunity to tease the other dolphins with a big fish or have a game of chases to prove how powerful he is. A wonderful dolphin and of the very few dolphins in this population that can make me laugh out loud at what he gets up to.

Like Salt, Pepper was named in 1976 because in that first year she was seen often with Salt – so they became Salt and Pepper. Thus Pepper was the second humpback to receive a name. Pepper is a female, a mother of nine and as of 2008 she is also a grandmother. Here’s her family tree.

Other similarities between Salt and Pepper is that like Salt often hooks up with Cardhu at some point in the season, Pepper often can be seen with a whale named Nile – another reproducing female. Nile was born to another of our adoptable humpbacks, Mars, in 1987. Unlike Salt and Pepper, we saw Nile as a calf in the year of her birth so we know how old she is and can follow her throughout her life. Nile also has a distinctive dorsal fin, it’s extremely sickled with a white slash at the base on the right side. In this photo Nile is in the front and Pepper is behind her.

Salt and Pepper also have their differences. Pepper is more surface active then Salt, you might even see her breach. And if you do, make sure you check out her jaw line – on the left side you will see jaw scuffing. This wearing away of skin along the jaw line occurs, we believe, when humpback scrape their jaws along the seafloor to force the sandlance into the water column where the humpbacks can eat them. Sandlance are small schooling fish that migrate up and down in the water column, sometimes burrowing into the sandy substrate. Most humpbacks have these jaw scuffing scars on their right side – while Pepper appears ‘left-handed’ with her scuffing on the left side.

In 1996 Pepper gave birth to a calf later named Zenith. While most calves stay with their mothers for only one year, Zenith was with Pepper when they returned in 1997. They stayed together the entire summer that second year, and at the time Pepper was pregnant with her 6^th calf, Bishop. Zenith and Pepper parted ways that fall, but this was not the only time Pepper was to be seen with one of her calves in their second year. In 2000 Habenero was born and like all calves spent her first year with her mother, but unlike most juveniles Habenero spent the spring of her second year with Pepper. While Habenero did not spend nearly the amount of time with Pepper in her second year as Zenith did – it was cool to see this rarity occur (even if it was to a lesser extent) twice with Pepper’s calves.

Unfortunately Pepper’s life and family tree have also been marked by human impacts. Remember Zenith who back in 1997 spent her second feeding season with Pepper? Well towards the end of her third summer in 1998 Zenith was mortally wounded by a ship strike. And in June of 2009, Pepper herself was entangled in fishing gear. After becoming entangled we did not see Pepper again until May of this year….yet fortunately when Pepper was resighted she was gear free.

While we see Pepper a lot in the Gulf of Maine, she’s also been seen in the Bay of Fundy. You can follow Pepper on twitter for real-time sightings of Pepper every time we see her. And of course Pepper is adoptable.

More on our adoptable animals...This time Charlie Phillips tells us a little more about 'Kesslet the dolphin'. To keep up with sightings updates of all the adoptable dolphins of the Moray Firth in Scotland check out Charlie's blog. And remember you can always give the gift of adoption for the holidays.

“Kesslet” (ID# 433) was born in 1994, daughter of the late Kess (ID#85) (who sadly died in 1998) and little sister of “Friths Bro” (ID#84). Kesslet was left motherless at the young age of 4, resulting in a bit of a tough upbringing – having to fend for herself at such a young age. And grow up she did, and what a fantastic dolphin! Ultra fast, incredible manoeuvrability and clever hunting tactics have made her into a formidable predator – she never, ever, misses a fish. After leading the carefree, somewhat precocious life of a single girl for ages she eventually gave birth to her first calf in September 2007.

The baby dolphin was soon identified through one of my photos as a boy and now he is three years old and almost as big as his Mum. He has been called Charlie (ID#1025) and is now as fast and as cheeky as his Mum was at the same age. It can be quite emotional watching the two of them together in the Kessock Channel sometimes as Kesslet takes Charlie to the same places and does exactly the same things as her mother did with her

 I sometimes have to remind myself which dolphins I am watching. Her dorsal fin is relatively unmarked with no big nicks or deep scratches but is very re-curved and she can be recognised by this even at a distance. Charlie, however has picked up an impressive array of nicks and scratches for such a relatively young dolphin – a typical boy really.