Photographs by Sierra Sequeira and Austin
Larner
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Oh, the amazing Spinner Dolphins. No other dolphin spirals itself into the air completing up to seven rotations before hitting the water. And the babies!!! They do it too!!! When we encounter the Spinners, they are usually in pods of 500 to thousands and when we get into the water, it is a pure wall of dolphins as far as you can see. And the sound they make will blow you away! We love spending time with these playful dolphins and seek them out whenever possible.
Recently we came upon a pod of THOUSANDS of Spinner Dolphins. As far as the eye could see, there were Spinners spinning out of the water. We have some photos for you to see here, but you have to see the video to even get a concept of what it was like.... We also recently came across a group we call the Nursery and Infirmary. It was a small group of Spinners, about 150, and it contained large numbers of tiny babies and hurt Spinner dolphins (with broken, bent fins, bumps, holes, etc.) We think the big group was close by and were hearding in fish for this slower group to eat.
When breaching, the Long-Snouted Spinner Dolphin hurls itself up to 9 1/4 feet (3 m) into the air, then twists its body into sinuous curves or spins round on its longitudinal axis up to seven times in a single leap. The Spinners eat a variety of mid-water fish and squid.
Costa Rica as its own variation of the Spinner Dolphin, called the Costa Rican Spinner Dolphin. This variation of Spinner Dolphins live in just a 95 mile wide band off the Costa Rican coast.
Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of Long-Snouted Spinner Dolphins have been killed by tuna purse-seine fisheries, causing a great decline in the population. In fact, over 90% of the Costa Rican Spinner dolphins have been killed. In every Spinner group that we find, we see many of them injured. This is a result of commercial fishing for tuna. We have been in the water with the Spinner dolphins when the helicopter from a large tuna fishing boat started to circle us. If we had not been there that day, these dolphins would have had a net set around them and they would have been subjected to stress and possible injury or death. A big setback for the Costa Rican Spinner dolphins was the recent decision by the United States to once again buy Costa Rican tuna. Please join us in our boycott of canned tuna or at least buy the "dolphin safe" varieties (although dolphins are still killed in the process, just less of them!). The Costa Rican Spinner dolphins are just one of the many reasons we want to create the National Marine Sanctuary here, so we can protect the remaining Spinner Dolphins. To sign our Petition CLICK HERE
