Buzzin Bizarre

This is ‘Winter’ who lost her tail in a crab net when she was only two months old and was found distressed and floating off the coast of Florida.

The bottlenose Dolphin, could just about wiggle from side to side with her stump, until she was rescued by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida.

David Yates, the Aquarium director said “She had to learn to swim without a tail, which no dolphin has ever done in captivity. We didn’t know if she could do that. But vets feared her waggling might damage her spine.

The team came up with a solution to Winter’s problem, an artificial tail by the prosthetics designer, Kevin Carroll, who has also helped dogs, an ostrich and even a duck.

Mr Carroll said “I came straight down, saw Winter and felt sorry for her, I said ‘OK, we’ll fit her a little tail. Not a big deal. Little did I know it was going to take a year and a half. With a person, when we fit a socket we have one long, solid bone. We don’t have to have the socket moving in every direction. With a dolphin, it needs to move along with her full spine. But the months of work were worth it.”

Winter is now transformed, fitted with a 30 inch silicone and plastic tail, she may not be the most graceful dolphin swimming around but seems much happier.

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