Dolphins are such wonderful animals. They are very friendly and active with humans. When people hear the word dolphin they think of the television show "Flipper." These animals are perhaps the most well known cetaceans, because every marine park has a display and a research facility about these creatures.

The bottlenose dolphin, specie name Tursiops truncatus Latin word for 'porpoise' and 'face'. These animals are relatively robust with usually a short and stubby beak, giving the name bottlenose. These animals length vary to six to twelve feet and may weigh much as one thousand, four hundred and thirty pounds. Males are somewhat bigger than females. The color of the bottlenose also varies with different dolphins. Generally they are a light gray to slate gray on the upper part of the body and shading to lighter sides of pale, and pinkish gray on their belly. Sometimes their bellies and lower sides are spotted.

These bottlenose dolphins have more flexibly in their neck than any other specie of dolphins. This is because of the five of the seven neck vertebrae is not fused together as seen in the other oceanic dolphins. They also have about eighteen to twenty-six pairs of sharp, conical teeth in each side of their jaw. They have a diverse feeding behavior that coordinates to catching food. They feed in association with human fishing; they chase their prey into the mud banks. An adult bottlenose dolphin may consume up to fifteen to thirty pounds of food each day. They eat a wide variety of foods including fishes, squids, and even other crustaceans.

It takes eleven years for a male to reach sexual maturity. It takes females to reach their sexual maturity in about five to seven years. The gestation period is about twelve months. Calving can take up to place year-around with peaks in some areas during spring and fall. The calves only nurse for about over a year (twelve to eighteen months), and they stay with their mothers for only three years to learn how to catch fish and other important survival tasks.

Bottlenose dolphins are found worldwide except they are absent from forty-five degrees pole ward in either hemisphere. They swim in temperate and tropical waters. They are mostly seen in harbors, bays, lagoons, and river mouths. In some areas, dolphins have a limited home range, and in others, they appear to migratory generally ranging farther.

On the number of studies based on near shore populations, the dolphins seem to live in relatively open societies. Often group sizes are less than twenty near shore, and some offshore groups have been seen to be more than several hundred. Understandable that dolphins travel in groups when and whenever they go. The way that they dolphin behave is similar to the way that a human may behave. Why would we want to destroy something that is so close to the human race? Well to the citizens of Futo, Japan dolphins are just animals to be capture and eaten. They are not important to the culture, like dolphins are important here in America. Fisherman catches and stabs these innocent dolphins everyday. "The dolphins died in the hundreds and in silence- their screams too high to be heard by the men in blue overalls, who chopped at their throats with meat knives and hooks" (Heseltine, 1). These dolphins are being killed for fun, which should not be right and should be stopped. Innocent dolphins should not be killed just because they are near the bays and harbors. These fishermen will go on drive hunts between October and April killing thousands at a time. Being sold to marine aquariums might save the lefts-over, but others will have to wait tomorrow in the water that they can barely swim through because of the blood and body bits of their massacred friends. It is hard to think that someone would kill an animal that is so emotional close to a human. These dolphins will stay in groups, playing with each other and couples swim together with their fins touching each other like humans holding hands.

Most of the killing has stop now. One Japanese fisherman thinks that is is now wrong to kill dolphins, "I cannot kill dolphins anymore," says Izumi Ischii from a fishing village called Futo. "They cry when they are about to die. I cannot kill something when tears are rolling down its cheeks," (Heseltine, 1). Heseltine has also stated, "There has been no drive hunts in Futo since 1999, when an undercover Japanese camera operator working for the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) revealed the full horror of the hunt," (1). Now the Japanese fisherman do not kill the dolphins but some are still hunting to capture them and selling the females to aquariums to where they are getting 15,000 for each one, the rest are let go back in the ocean separated from their pod with their sprits broken. It is just death waiting for them.

With articles like this one we can help stop fisherman to stop killing and capturing dolphins. Someone must stick up for these harmless animals, because they are not able to get away from such terror.

"The Blood Of  Dolphins." Earth Island Journal. Spring2002.vol 17. issue 1. p.24.
Cetacea:  http://www.cetacea.org/bottle.htm
American Cetacean Society Fact Sheet:  http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/btlnose.htm