new home for deaf dolphin and you to

New Home for Deaf Dolphin and You to Swim With!

Or click on this: Deaf Dolphin Finds New Friends

Deaf dolphin calls Dolphins Plus home sweet home

BY STEVE GIBBS Citizen Staff KEY LARGO -- Castaway, a deaf Atlantic

bottlenose dolphin relegated to public display, finally has a

permanent home.

The dolphin, whose 3-day-old calf died June 15, has been moved to a

natural seawater lagoon at Dolphins Plus, a research and education

facility where visitors pay to swim with the dolphins. It was a long

journey getting there. Castaway, named for the cove near Vero Beach

where she stranded herself last November, was placed in isolation at

the Marine Mammal Conservancy at Mile Marker 102.5 in January after

rescuers learned she was pregnant. Her calf, named Wilson, was born on

June 11 and lived almost four days. The results of a necropsy, done to

determine the cause of its death, was not available at press time.

Because the National Marine Fisheries Service considers Castaway to be

rehabilitated, the agency said she either had to be released or

transferred to a facility that displays, not rehabilitates, dolphins.

But she could not be moved to the Dolphins Plus lagoon immediately

because a pregnant dolphin there is about to give birth at any moment.

Due to the recent loss of her own calf, it would not be healthy to

introduce Castaway into an environment where she would be exposed to

another newborn calf, said Robert O. Stevens, director of veterinary

medicine.

Castaway spent a few days alone in a 24-foot circular above-ground

pool at Island Dolphin Care while Dolphins Plus erected a barrier to

separate the lagoon. The pregnant dolphin, named "Dinghy," lives on

one side with another adult female dolphin, while Castaway now resides

on the other side with two other adult female dolphins, facility

curator Art Cooper said.

Besides being deaf, Castaway's vision is impaired, Stevens said. "Her

vision on her right side is not as good as her left. She turns her

head and looks out of her left eye," he said. "We suspect she might

also have neurological problems. She may have had a stroke. She

doesn't have pattern recognition, so we suspect a neurological

problem. "We don't know for sure," he added. "Because of her size, it

has not been possible to get to a facility where they could use an

MRI." The mammal weighs between 550 and 600 pounds. Dolphin advocates

have been critical of the care provided to Castaway, saying social

animals such as dolphins should not be kept in isolation. "We're not

isolating her at our whim," Stevens said when Castaway still was at

Island Dolphin Care. "[The U.S. Department of Agriculture] says we

have to isolate her. It is not smart to introduce her into a strange

group of dolphin -- boom -- like that." While she was at Island

Dolphin Care, she was under the care of the Marine Mammal

Conservancy's Robert Lingenfelser. "Socially she's doing just fine,"

Lingenfelser said at the time. "She was depressed for 2 1/2 weeks

after Wilson died, but she seems to have recovered from that." Dolphin

advocate Rick Trout, a former conservancy director, said he was

pleased that Castaway has been moved. "I'm glad to see that she is no

longer at [the conservancy], that she is ... where she should have

been moved last January, with other animals," Trout said.

sgibbs@keysnews.com