Animals available for adoption in the summer of 2016
by Katharina Heyer
Text: Katharina Fotos: firmm
We look back to many interesting sightings of our animals available for adoption.
Bottlenose Dolphins
Lolly we have seen many times in Spring in good health, then we didn’t see her for a while; but when she turned up again, she was accompanied by a young one. Lolly we already know since 2004 and since then she already had three healthy babies.
Baby Leila of course has grown a lot. She nevertheless accompanies her mother and often comes to the boat curiously.
Puzzle and Cutty we often see together in bigger groups of Bottlenose Dolphins. They are very trusting and often swim in the bow of the boat.
White Cap also seems to have a young one with her. We have seen her often, once even far out in the Atlantic Ocean, when we saw a group of more than 100 Bottlenose Dolphins.
Salto really is a jumper, who often delighted us. He above all loves high waves and jumps playfully in the water.
Pilot Whales
Gorro swam this summer most of the time with a family of four other Pilot Whales. His family seems to have grown, as last year he was seen only with two other whales.
Ponce is still one of the biggest males in the Strait of Gibraltar.Edu and Pedro often accompany him.
They behave trustfully and like to swim sometimes underneath the boat.It appears to me that they observe the underwater windows of the VISION in a curious manner.
Fernando and Dientes still swim inseparably together with a third Pilot Whale. They dive notably long, so that we often go away to not disturb them.
ZackZack and Baby Hook the two females, often swim together through the waves. They stay at the side of the boat and are not very shy, as they often swim underneath the boat.
Franzfin, Johnny and Sierra form another family together with 3-4 younger Pilot Whales. Franzfin is big and strong, Johnny a little bit smaller and he doesn’t seem to have remaining injuries from the rope that last year got entangled around his tail fin. Sierra, a female is easily recognizable. All three of them are trustful and often close to the boat.
Mother Juana and little Toni often delight our guests under the boat and look curiously through the underwater windows. Baby Toni has turned into a cheeky young Pilot Whale. Mother Juana received this summer a cut from a rope in her dorsal fin. Fortunately the injury seems to heal well.
Nina with her young of last year visits us very often, coming to the boat. Her little one has turned meanwhile into a teenager, which frequently runs away to swim alongside the boat.
Gonzo and Nuevo we didn’tsee very often, although they are easily recognizable. They both have distinctive dorsal fins.
Vicente still has his injury on his back. Apparently it doesn’t disturb him too much.
Mocho we weren’t able to observe from near this season. We have seen him though a few times from far away, but he was too far away to be clearly identified.
Sperm Whales
Cicatriz was supposedly among the group of 9 that we saw the 23rd of May. They were all so close to each other that we were not able to take pictures of them individually, but only of the whole group.
Observador we saw several times. He still is really curious and swam slowly towards our boat. When he dived down in slow motion, it always was a moment of joy.
Orcas
Baby Wilson has grown a lot during the winter and spring months. He still is thesmallest among the four young Orcas. He had to learn, how to eat a tuna or at least a part of it, because without hands that is not an easy task.He therefore had less time for us; nevertheless he was jumping a couple of times to our great joy.
Camorro led once again his family of eight, four females and four young ones. He hanged around near us for most of the time and stayed a lot out by the fishermen. Artfully he robbed the tuna from their lines for his family.