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Calls for tighter speed limit rules after calf dies in Port River

Calls for tighter speed limit rules after calf dies in Port River

Following the death of a bottlenose dolphin calf called Holly, local experts are calling for tighter controls on speeding boats and other watercraft in Adelaide’s Port River. Holly was only a week old when her body was found on January 2nd. An autopsy found signs of “blunt trauma”, possibly caused by a boat. Findings from…

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Port River dolphin numbers on the rise

Findings to be published in a forthcoming report show that the number of dolphins living in Adelaide’s Port River have increased threefold in the last two decades. The success of the population increase is being put down to improved water quality in the river and its estuary according to the author of the report, WDC’s…

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Dead dolphin in Adelaide’s Port River was shot

A necropsy (post-mortem) has discovered that a bottlenose dolphin found dead in Adelaide’s Port River last December had been shot. The dolphin, named Graze by researchers, was discovered in the Barker Inlet but only examined this month by staff from the South Australian Museum. Four shotgun pellets were found in the dolphin. WDC’s Dr Mike…

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Is this dolphin family doomed?

Wave was one of the matriachs of the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary. She was born about 1992 and had the first (Bronny, a male) of her six calves in 2002. Her second calf (Ripple, a female) was born in 2006. Her last three calves all died and Wave disappeared after the death of her last calf…

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Where is Wave?

Some worrying news from WDC’s dolphin adoption programme in Adelaide, Australia… Port River resident Wave has not been seen since mid-September and anxiety is mounting among local dolphin watchers. Wave was sighted with a very small dead calf we suspect was still born on September 10 and, as is normal in the species, protected it…

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Want to name an Australian baby dolphin?

I have been studying a community of some 50 resident dolphins living in the Port River estuary (Adelaide, Australia) for the past 25 years. These dolphins are perhaps the most urbanised in the whole world, living as they do almost in the heart of a city of a million people. About twenty years ago I observed…

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Adelaide dolphin Wave grieves the loss of her calf

This past week we watched with great sadness the way a mother dolphin grieves for her dead calf. Port River dolphin Wave is known to have given birth to a calf on Sunday, September 22 but the baby was either still born or died almost immediately after being born. For the next five days Wave…

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Dolphin shot in Australian sanctuary

There have been calls for more rangers to patrol the area around the Adelaide’s Port River dolphin sanctuary following the discovery of a shotgun pellet in a young dolphin found dead in the areas outer harbour. Three other dolphins have been found dead in the sanctuary in recent weeks and WDC believes that the deaths…

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