Rumours have been spreading that Dusty was pregnant and had a calf around the beginning of August. As far as we can tell this is based on the fact that she was seen with a calf by a number of people on a particular day. This is a pretty amazing event in itself but what makes it even more amazing is that it wasn’t her calf and it was not even a dolphin but a porpoise.
A regular dolphin swimmer, Ute, had been in the usual Dusty swimming spot in Milltown Malbay, Co. Clare, sitting on the rocks with her feet in the water. She saw Dusty swimming towards pushing something ahead. Ute was not particularly surprised as Dusty can often be seen pushing things along. But as the dolphin got closer Ute realised it was another baby dolphin. She assumed it was a bottlenose dolphin, like Dusty, but as it got close saw that it was a porpoise, about the size of a newborn human baby so it must have been only a day or two old, but no older than a week.
Dusty brought the calf right up to Ute, who assumed that Dusty wanted her to have it. She slipped into the water and held the calf for a moment before giving it back to Dusty. Dusty eventually left the area again with the calf but carried on with the typically maternal actions of a dolphin nudging and guiding her calf. In many ways it is not surprising if the people watching from the shore concluded it was Dusty’s calf, but we can confirm that it was a porpoise. Dusty has not been sighted with the calf since.
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