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Fishers' involvement is crucial. Image: WDC/JTF

When porpoises and people overlap

We're funding a project in Hong Kong that's working with fishing communities to help save...

Mindful conservation – why we need a new respect for nature

'We should look at whales and dolphins as the indigenous people of the seas -...
A dolphin called Arnie with a shell

Dolphins catch fish using giant shell tools

In Shark Bay, Australia, two groups of dolphins have figured out how to use tools...
Common dolphins at surface

Did you know that dolphins have unique personalities?

We all have personalities, and between the work Christmas party and your family get-together, perhaps...
Leaping harbour porpoise

The power of harbour porpoise poo

We know we need to save the whale to save the world. Now we are...
Holly. Image: Miray Campbell

Meet Holly, she’s an incredible orca leader

Let me tell you the story of an awe-inspiring orca with a fascinating family story...
Humpback whale. Image: Christopher Swann

A story about whales and humans

As well as working for WDC, I write books for young people. Stories; about the...
Risso's dolphin at surface

My lucky number – 13 years studying amazing Risso’s dolphins

Everything we learn about the Risso's dolphins off the coast of Scotland amazes us and...

Postcard From The Firth of Tay…

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to the very reliable technique of photographic identification of dorsal fins, we can often keep track of dolphins over a long period of time, and over some quite long distances too. I had a nice surprise recently when Barbara Cheney, Photo ID officer with Aberdeen University’s Lighthouse Field Station at Cromarty e-mailed me to say that our friends at St. Andrews University Sea Mammal Research Unit had sent her some dorsal fin pictures from near the Tay Estuary taken in July last year and looking carefully through the photos she picked out ID#1113 “Lunar” who is the young son of our adoption dolphin “Moonlight” and who is having a leap out of the water in my archive photo below…

 photo Lunar Breaching.jpg

Lunar wasn’t around much at all in 2014 here in the Moray Firth so it looks as though he had a bit of wanderlust and didn’t fancy the idea of having a baby brother or sister so went “swimabout” and ended up with some other well known dolphins away down the east coast – a trip of nearly 300 kilometres !

I wonder if (a) He will come back sometime and (b) Whether or not he will send his Mum a postcard !

Best Wishes,

Charlie.