Wild Facts

Photo by AllenMcC (Wikimedia)

Welcome to the first week of May!  If you are living in Canada then today is an important day and I would like to take a moment to urge all Canadians to head to the polls and vote for our next Prime Minister.  Even if you are under age, I still expect you to go and convince your parents to vote since it is important to have our voices heard.  Okay, so the public announcement section of today’s Wild Fact is over so let’s talk about the Dusky Dolphin which is one of the best acrobats out there.

Photo by AllenMcC (Wikimedia)

The Dusky Dolphin is well known throughout the world for their striped body and impressive acrobat skills.  I don’t know if you have ever seen an aerial show put on by the Dusky Dolphin but they are pretty incredible.  This particular dolphin is capable of doing backslaps, headslaps, giant leaps and of course the more challenging head-over-tail leaps.  The amazing thing is they learn to do this all on their own without the help of human trainers.  And don’t kid yourself, they actually have to learn since they are not born with this acrobatic knowledge.  They will study other dolphins and master each trick as they grow older. I guess it is like Sea World of the wild.

If you want to catch the next Dusky Dolphin show then you can head to several places including the oceans off of South America, South Africa and New Zealand.  Chances are pretty high that there are tourist operators on each of these continents that would be willing to take you out on the ocean to watch these amazing mammals.

You may want to book this trip soon though since it appears that their population is decreasing (although exact population counts are unknown).  Unfortunately the Dusky Dolphin often falls victim to fishing nets as they are accidentally caught.  As well, this beautiful dolphin is also hunted for its meat in South America.  You think they would be hard to catch with all of the flips and acrobats!

Well that does it for our Monday Wild Fact.  It is time to go and vote so turn off the computer and head down to the polls.  See all of you tomorrow!

Photo courtesy of Chinese Academy of Science

Happy Labour Day to my North American Readers.  Speaking of readers, I apologize for the interruption in service yesterday and possibly today.  In fact, I am not sure if you will be reading this on Monday or not.  I have had some issues with my domain name subscription which should be sorted out soon. If you are here with me than let’s take a minute to learn about the Baiji Dolphin.  I would like to thank one of my faithful readers, Agapelife, for the excellent idea.

The Baiji Dolphin is a river dolphin found in the Yangtze River in China.  They are also known as the Whitefin Dolphin, Yangtze Dolphin and White Flag Dolphin.  They are beautiful creatures that can grow up to 2.60 m (8.5′) long and weigh about 167 kg (368 lbs). This particular dolphin has a similar appearance to other river dolphins with a stocky body, narrow upturned beak and a rounded melon with eyes set higher up on their head than most other dolphins.  Unlike the similar South Asian River Dolphin the Baiji Dolphin is capable of vision.  Although they are not blind they have eyesight equivalent to a 105 year old man wearing an eye patch. Of course this correlation isn’t scientifically proven but it does illustrate my point about them having very poor eyesight.  It is a good thing that dolphins can use that handy “echolocation” to find their prey items.

Photo by Mark Carwardine

Now for the bad news.  Your chances of ever seeing a Baiji River Dolphin are incredibly slim.  No, it isn’t just because they are secretive and like to maintain a low-key lifestyle.  Unfortunately, human expansion and development along with substantial fishing of the Yangtze River has awarded the Baiji Dolphin with an unbearable honour.  This particular dolphin is the first species of cetacean (marine mammals) to become extinct as a result of human activity.  The only silver lining to this story is the fact that the Baiji Dolphin is only functionally extinct, which means there may still be a few individuals kicking around (errr… swimming around) but not enough to sustain a healthy population.  It isn’t much of a silver lining but it is something. I for one do not feel particularly proud to be responsible for the extinction of such an amazing mammal (or any living thing for that matter). I don’t want to preach but we really need to start shifting our awareness and realize that our actions on the environment has consequences.

It may be too late to save the Baiji Dolphin but if you would like to help prevent other marine mammals from the same fate than I recommend becoming involved.  Check out http://whaleadoption.org/ and become part of the solution.

Baiji Dolphin Fast Fact – Fossil records show that the Baiji Dolphin appeared about 25 million years ago and made its way from the Pacific Ocean to the Yangtze River about 20 million years ago.  Chinese Legends indicated that the Baiji Dolphin was a symbol of Peace and Prosperity and nicknamed the “Goddess of the Yangtze”.  Does anyone else get a bad vibe from humanity wiping out a symbol of peace and prosperity?

Well, I hope you were able to read today’s Wild Fact and more importantly I hope you were able to get the message from today’s Fact.  Have a great day everyone!

I know we spent all of last week in the water but I couldn’t resist taking another trip back to the ocean. Besides I wanted to illustrate that hybrid animals don’t just live on land.  Today we have the cross between a bottlenose dolphin and false killer whale.  Naturally, they decided to name it the Wholphin.

This is a rare hybrid species but they have been reported to occur in the wild. Currently there are only two Wholphin’s held in captivity. Both of them can be found at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii. Unlike the other hybrids discussed the creation of the wholphin was more of an accident.  It just so happened that a female bottlenose was sharing a tank with a male false killer whale. As you can imagine the trainers were surprised to see the hybrid.  They were even more surprised when the wholphin produced her own offspring proving that she was fertile.  Unfortunately, it took three tries before she was able to produce a calf that was healthy enough to survive the harsh world.  In fact, it was so healthy that only a few months after birth it was the size of a one year old dolphin.

The appearance fo the wholphin can vary depending on the parents but generally it appears to take the middle ground.  For example, one of the captive wholphins has 66 teeth which is between both parents. Her dad, the false killer whale, has 44 teeth while her mom, the bottlenose dolphin, has 88 teeth. I guess wholphins just walk the line and don’t want to upset anyone by taking a stance.

If you are ever in Hawaii, and I hope to be someday soon, then make sure you check out the Sea Life Center for the two Wholphin’s.