While it is known that female bottlenose dolphins can spontaneously produce milk if a calf is present, the practice is not well documented and aquarium staff are carefully watching the process.
The unnamed calf was born to a dolphin named Jade, who is being helped in her nursing duties by the mother-daughter team of Chesapeake and Shiloh, the aquarium said in a statement issued to announce the birth.
Aquarium officials are compiling a list of possible names for the calf, which appears to be thriving.
The three-foot-long, 36-pound calf is nursing regularly, swimming more on its own and has begun to interact with the trainers and toys, the aquarium said.
Dolphin calves are fragile and not easily handled during their first two to three months of life, and trainers at the aquarium are leaving the nursing duties to its mother and her helpers.
Post a Comment
We publish an annual Resident’s Guide for each of our communities. It’s a tremendous source of local information – containing lists of services, names of organizations, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and much more. Keep it handy; use it often. You can find information from the Resident’s Guide here, or order a copy of the publication from our Circulation Department by calling (952) 345-6682 or e-mailing circulation@swpub.com.
Southwest Newspapers’ weekly community papers have histories that go as far back as the Civil War era. Several were started from scratch as our communities began to grow in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s. These popular newspapers routinely win awards of excellence from organizations like the Minnesota Newspaper Association. 