Bottle-nose Dolphins

Bottle Nose Dolphins are mostly found around the British Isles, where they are seen maily in the seas, south and west. Dolphins are very social animals and live most of the year in single sex groups, but males, females, and young dolphins live together during the breeding season.

Dolphins communicate by making a series of whistles and clicks. Experts are unsure about how complex their communication is, individual dolphins can definitely recognise and respond to each other. Like all other dolphins, they use ''echolocation" to form a feeling of what their surroundings are like in dirty water. The emit a series of loud clicks underwater which travel until they hit a solid object. Then the sound is bounced off and returns to the dolphin, which is then able to interpret the sounds into a map of his/her environment. <just like a bat>

Dolphins are intelligent creatures. When fish are moving in shoals (huge groups) large groups of dolphins form to herd the fish into a mass which they can feed on easily. The dolphins then whistle directions to each other and so they can make loud noises at the fish to confuse them. When the shoals of fish are scarce, the individual dolphins hunt at nighttime for bottom-dwelling fish and squid. They can feed at depths of up to 280 meters, and can dive up to 600 meters and can stay underwater for up to 15 minutes to breathe.

A lot of mistakes people make are they think that dolphins are fish. Dolphins are not fish, they are mammals, like we are. They have warm blood, need to breathe, and don't "hatch" their babies. They are very human, playful, and intelligent. Animal Scientists often think that dolphins are much more clever than most people give them credit for. They've done tests and the results were that dolphins are kind to all animals, and don't "fight" anything/one besides their main prey, krill.

Bottle nosed dolphins mate in the spring and the summer, though females give birth to single calves about 10-12 months later. Although they are capacle of giving birth unaided, two or more "midwives" often help out with the delivery by tugging on the newborn's tail and encouragement! And they protect the mother from the dangerous sharks. Isn't that cute?

When humans and dolphins hunt their fish in the same area, conflict happens. Many thousands of dolphins drown in fishing nets each year. However, dolphins also entertain humans, as they are the species most commonly trained in dolphinaria. Questions have been raised as to whether keeping dolphins in captivity is cruel or not. Some trainers build strong relationships *ahem, most trainers* but keeping any animals such as dolphins in captivity is questionable, as no pool,  no matter how big it can be is ever the same as the open ocean where they are free to live their lives freely.