25th September
Over the last fortnight Dusty has been going off on her own and with other dolphins on several occasions rather than always hanging around the swimming coves. When we received a report earlier today that she had been seen carrying around a dead calf, we immediately assumed that she must have given birth during one of these absences, despite the fact that no-one had asserted with confidence that she was pregnant. (It is in fact very difficult to tell when a dolphin is pregnant as they show very little in the way of a ‘bump’). We therefore published a news item this afternoon which now appears rather hasty in its conclusions and which we have since withdrawn!
Dusty was seen today again carrying the dead calf on her forehead rather as she does a boogie board and other objects. This is normal behaviour with a bottlenose dolphin whose newborn calf has died. Sometimes they will carry a stillborn calf around for several days, perhaps hoping to resuscitate it, but more typically for less than a day until they accept the death and move on. However in this case Dusty also dropped the calf and left it in order to play with swimmers, including one of her most long-standing and favourite companions Ute Margreff. She also went off fishing, following fishing boats and tossing mackerel in the air, which seems less appropriate for a supposedly grieving mother! She played with Ute for several hours today and was apparently as playful and frisky as ever, and we have now learnt that Ute was in the water with her for at least five hours on each of the previous three days and observing her for much of the rest of the time, so we no longer believe that Dusty could have given birth in the hours of darkness remaining and have recovered so quickly from the trauma of losing a calf. Moreover there was no difference in Dusty’s behaviour or physical appearance before and after the arrival of the dead calf and no signs of afterbirth or swollen genitalia.
Finally, as to where else she might have got a dead calf from, we learn that a group of dolphins was hanging around the bay on Saturday and Sunday. If one of these had a stillbirth and then moved on leaving the corpse behind, perhaps Dusty then picked it up and brought it in as reported last night. A similar incident was reported last summer when Dusty was also seen carrying a dead calf around although we had not thought she was pregnant.
It would be interesting to know if there was any discernible reason for the calf’s death, so if you find it washed up on the beach you might like to report it to the IWDG strandings hotline on 021 490 4197 / 087 699 5314. They will arrange for a post mortem examination to be carried out.
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