Life Continues for a Rescued Dolphin

What an amazing two and a half weeks we experienced in April, watching from start to finish the entanglement of fishing line around a young dolphin’s tail fin to the rescue that saved his life. 19-month-old Fergie is now “living life large” and back to normal in his habitat. If you missed the previous articles, you can go online to coastalbreezenews.com and search “columnists” until you get to “stepping stones” and you can read about how a community came together to save a life.

The next step for the dolphin study team on board the Dolphin Explorer would be just as critical as the gathering of info prior to the rescue. Now that Fergie has been freed of his life-threatening entanglement, he would need to be monitored and evaluated for any positive or negative effects from that wound.

Since April 7th, the team has documented each and every sighting of this calf and his mom, Skipper. The location of their presence, the behavior of mom and calf, what they were doing, how they were interacting with each other as well as with other dolphins, and their feeding habits were all recorded.

Fortunately, Fergie displayed no signs of pain and was quite actively playing now that the tail fin was free. He fully breached from the water on several occasions, an excellent sign that healing was rapidly occurring. It was obvious that the future was bright for this youngster.

So, what’s next for Fergie? What becomes of a 19-month-old dolphin and what can we expect to see in the coming years?

Calves living in the north Marco Island don’t migrate. They live here year-round but have a travel range, so we expect to see a lot of these two. The typical time spent by a mom’s side in this area is three to four years, so Fergie still has 14-16 months at a minimum with Skipper.

We noticed in early April that Skipper was swimming away from Fergie when he tried to nurse from her. A calf will usually draw milk from mom for 18 to 24 months. Mom was trying to have this calf stop nursing and start catching more fish on his own. This is normal at this stage of life in our area. Patterns will vary around the globe and according to different environments.

When a calf is two years old, if mom has stopped nursing her young, she could be in a mood to become pregnant again. It is not unusual to see our females being followed and courted by males when the calves reach this age /stage in life. 

The pregnancy period for an adult female in our area is 12 months. This means Fergie would have until age three to fine-tune fishing and social skills. If Skipper does have a new calf at that time, Fergie will go out on his own. He would have learned sufficiently from mom to not just survive but to thrive in his home habitat.

Since Skipper taught Fergie to feed in a specific region, known as a “Natal Range,” guess where this 3-year-old will hunt with success? Correct! Exactly where mom instructed him to use his skills.

Just like his brothers and sisters who were born in the same Natal Range, he will feed there, sometimes right alongside these siblings. Family reunions are common to see. It is also common to have older siblings babysitting a new brother or sister, so look for Fergie to play with his new brother or sister.

Although he is away from mom and out on his own, Fergie will still be young. He will not reach maturity until he is 10 to 12 years old. Those years from three to maturity will be used to learn more about what adult life will eventually be like. He may actually form social bonds with other dolphins his own age. This will be a growing experience and will prepare him for adulthood.

Once he does reach maturity, he is likely to become a very dominant male in this society. His big brother Simon, born in 2007, has become a very prominent male here, and it would be easy to predict that Fergie would follow in Simon’s footsteps.

Once he has become fully grown and mating, he could live as long as 50 or 60 years. He can look forward to quite a life and could sire many offspring!

A life-saving rescue has laid the groundwork for one young dolphin to live a long and productive life. Instead of thinking “what happened” to this youngster, we can now anticipate “what will he become.” Here’s wishing you a great life in the Marco Island waters, young man!