DOLPHIN-FACTS-BLOG: Marine Activist

All About Me - Bottlenose Dolphin

I am called a Bottlenosed dolphin, I am the most common and well know out of us all, because many people have seen us at Seaworld and on tv and movies too !!!

We like to live in groups, we call them pods, normally there is about 10 - 30 of us dolphins in each pod, however we can include up to more than 1,000 !!!

We like to eat alot of fish, we have to hunt using our sonor, all we have to do is make these clicking sounds and listen for the echo sound, the echo sound help us determine where are food is and even the shape of it !!!

We also love to talk, communication is very important to us and since we can't speak words we use squeeks and make whistling sounds through our blowhole. We also can talk by using our body language, like when we slap our tails on the water means danger danger and when we jump and leap out of the water means we're happy, or we might just be showing off for someone we like !!!

And did I mention,... Bottleneose dolphins are one of the most intelligent mammals on Earth !!!! That's why we like to interact and play with humans. We entertain people too, not only in live shows but we have been on tv a lot too !!!

I also want everybody to know that some of us has even worked for the United States Military !!!!

3/1/11

Flipper The "Aquatic Lassie"

It was on September 18. 1964 families sat together in thier living rooms and watched for the first time on NBC this entertaining dolphin named "Flipper." America fell in love,...

The show was created by Ricou Browning and Jack Cowden, who incidently had exstensive experience in underwater performance and underwater filming !!! Ricou Browning was the guy who played as The Creature from the Black Lagoon in all the underwater scenes.

The series plot couldn't of better better written, it had it all. Flipper the wild pet and companion to Porter Ricks (Brian Kelly), the park warden at the Coral key park and Marine Preserve and his two boys named Sandy (Luke Halpin) and Bud (Tommy Norden). Flipper was is own park warden in the many ways he could spot and capture the bad guys and thugs, for he was very capable and intelligent. He also took special care of Bud, the youngest of boys, often rescuing him and taking him to safty when he got in areas he shouldnt of been in. (That's why Flipper had been dubbed an "aquatic Lassie") Flipper also put on a awesome display when he'd tailwag on top of the water and we seemed as if we understood what he was saying with each squeek.

Did You Know,.....
The "voice" of Flipper was actually not the squeeks of a dolphin, but the work of a doctored song of a kookaburra !!! Thats right, the kookaburra are famous for their unmistakable call, which sounds like a human laughing.

Flipper was filmed in Miami Florida, but what most people don't know it that Flipper was actually played by 5 female dolphins and occassionly 1 male dolphin. The first female to play flipper was Suzy, however another dolphin named Kathy played most of the rolls with the added help of Patty, Scotty and Squirt. Those 5 females were chosen because female dolphins have less scarring and also they are less aggressive than the males. The females did all the tricks however the had to bring in a male dolphin named Clown to do the tail walk tricks. The series ran until April 15th, 1967.