Peel-Harvey resident dolphin Squarecut gives birth to calf

As far as we know, this is the second time a birth of a bottlenose dolphin has been observed in the wild.

The newborn calf, Pom-Pom, is the fifth dolphin who has been born to the Peel-Harvey resident community of dolphins in 2017.

Bottlenose dolphins have calves every three years and their gestation period is approximately 12 months.

Squarecut, who we presume is in her 30’s, spends a lot of time in the Serpentine and Murray Rivers. Due to her age, we presume Squarecut has had many previous calves.

Lindy, Squarecut’s calf who was still dependent on her at the time, was found stranded alone in the upper reaches of the Serpentine River in January 2016. She was helped to deeper waters by the Mandurah Volunteer Dolphin Rescue Group and travelled downstream. A few days later we observed Lindy back together with Squarecut.

In November 2016 Lindy was sighted on her own and unfortunately in February 2017 she was found deceased in the Peel Inlet. We do not know what caused her death.

At the start of 2017 we thought Squarecut was pregnant again as she was looking very large. When a young calf was found stranded and alive in the Peel Inlet in April 2017, we thought this could be Squarecut’s calf. We had not observed her for a while and all newborn calves at that time were accounted for in the Peel-Harvey.

On the same day the calf stranded, we observed Squarecut being pursued by a group of male dolphins in the Peel Inlet. The same males were observed with her on multiple occasions during the few following weeks.

Squarecut never gave birth in 2017, and unfortunately the stranded calf had to be euthanized.

Now, exactly a year later, Squarecut has given birth to Pom-Pom. We will use genetic analyses to confirm whether the euthanized calf belonged to Squarecut. And for now, we hope that Squarecut looks after her calf to ensure Pom-Pom will survive to enter the Peel-Harvey resident community as an independent individual in three years’ time.