The community of bottlenose dolphins resident in the Sado estuary recorded a record number of births this year, with six new calves, the largest increase since observation of the group began 40 years ago.
“Six bottlenose dolphin pups, of the species Tursiops truncatusin the Sado estuary this year,” the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF) revealed in a statement this Wednesday.
“With these births, there are now 30 individuals that belong to this resident population,” adds the ICNF, highlighting that this is “a record since monitoring of this population of mules began, about 40 years ago.”
According to the ICNF, these puppies will be sponsored by students from the 1st cycle of the Sebastião da Gama School Group of Setúbal, the José Maria dos Santos School Group of Palmela, the Alcácer do Sal School Group and Grândola, which are part of the four municipalities integrated in the area of the Sado Estuary Natural Reserve.
The students of these schools will choose the names of the six baby bottlenose dolphins from a set of proposals, as part of the pedagogical actions that the ICNF develops with the school community of these municipalities.
In the statement, the ICNF explains that “bottleneck dolphins, or Tursiops Truncatus, owe their name ‘bottleneck’ to the fact that they like to gnaw on the nets that fishermen throw into the sea,” and that “‘corvineiro’ comes from the flavor that this species had for the croaker, when it existed in abundance in the estuary area and that has now returned to the estuary.
Also according to the ICNF, “all individuals in this resident population are individually identified by their dorsal fin and all have a name.”
The ICNF also states that bottlenose dolphins, which can measure about four meters long and weigh 800 kilos, feed on fish, cephalopods (cuttlefish, squid and octopuses) and other invertebrates, reaching sexual maturity between 11 and 12 years. , During pregnancy. It lasts about 12 months and they live, on average, about 50 years.
The mule population residing in Sado is the only one in the country and one of the only three known in all of Europe.
Source: TSF
