Dolphin may get a prosthetic tail

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Posted 9/25/2006 7:58 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to

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By Phil Davis, Associated Press

CLEARWATER, Fla. — The news from Indian River Lagoon was too

familiar: another dolphin gravely injured because of human action.

But marine scientist Steve McCulloch immediately saw this rescue was

unique. The baby bottlenose dolphin lost her tail, but perhaps her

life could be saved.

McCulloch, director of dolphin and whale research at the Harbor

Branch Oceanographic Institution, decided to channel his anger into a

solution.

 

The solution for the dolphin — dubbed Winter — may be a prosthetic

tail. If the logistics can be worked out, Winter's prosthesis would

be the first for a dolphin who lost its tail and the key joint that

allows it to move in powerful up-and-down strokes.

 

" There's never been a dolphin like her, " said Dana Zucker, chief

operating officer of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, which is now

Winter's home.

 

A dolphin in Japan has a prosthesis, the first in the world, to

replace a missing part of its tail.

 

Winter was a frail, dehydrated 3-month-old when she came to the

animal rescue center in December. A fisherman found her tangled in

the buoy line of a crab trap in Indian River Lagoon near Cape

Canaveral. The line tightened around her tail as she tried to swim

away, strangling the blood supply to her tail flukes.

 

" It looked like paper, " Zucker said of Winter's tail. " Bit by bit

over the weeks it just fell off. "

 

Winter was left with a rounded stump.

 

A team of more than 150 volunteers and veterinarians spent months

nursing Winter back to health. Zucker and her family cuddled with

Winter and fed her a special mix of infant formula and pureed fish in

the aquarium's rescue pool.

 

Winter learned how to swim without her tail, amazing her handlers

with a combination of moves that resemble an alligator's undulations

and a shark's side-to-side tail swipes. She uses her flippers,

normally employed for steering and braking, to get moving.

 

Winter can't keep up with wild dolphins that can swim up to 25 mph

with strokes of their tail flukes. She will be a permanent resident

at the aquarium, even if she gets a prosthetic tail.

 

In the tank, she swims and plays with another dolphin, rolling and

diving and surfacing to demand belly rubs and fish from her

caretakers.

 

Zucker has formed a team to discuss the prospects of designing a tail

for Winter. It has been consulting with a diving gear manufacturer, a

tire company and the Navy, which has experience attaching items to

dolphins for military research.

 

It's uncharted territory. Fuji, an elderly dolphin who lives at an

aquarium in Okinawa, Japan, had part of his tail remaining on which

to attach a prosthesis.

 

Winter doesn't. Both her tail flukes and peduncle, a wrist-like joint

that allows a dolphin's tail to move up and down, were lost to

necrosis. It is not clear how the prosthetic tail would be attached

to her stump, but it would need to be tough.

 

" The dolphin's tail fin is the most powerful swimming mechanism

Mother Nature ever designed, " McCulloch said. " When you see how much

pressure they put on their flukes, the prosthesis is going to take a

marvel of modern engineering. "

 

Veterinarians are unsure if a prosthesis will be beneficial or

harmful in the long term. Swimming without a tail may ultimately wear

on Winter's spine.

 

She would need at least three tails as she grows. She is now about 4

feet long and weighs 110 pounds. When she is full grown at age 15,

Winter will be twice as long and four times as heavy.

 

The cost of the prosthetic tail is unknown.

 

" All I know is Fuji's tail cost $100,000 — and that was in 2004, "

McCulloch said.

 

That's equal to the entire monthly operating budget of the Clearwater

Marine Aquarium, Zucker said. The small animal hospital relies mostly

on volunteer workers; its roof leaks in heavy rains.

 

" We're a mom and pop shop, " Zucker said. " It's a labor of love. "

 

She expects the design cost of the tail will be underwritten by the

company that creates it. It's the cost of the long-term care of

Winter — and the other injured animals in her care — that worry her.

 

Winter is a living reminder for humans to be careful about what they

leave in the water.

 

" The kids get it right away. It's the adults, more creatures of

habit, who take more persuasion, " McCulloch said. " You can't outlaw

fishing line, but you can educate a fisherman not to use careless

techniques such as tossing out line. "