Fact Box

• Dolphins eat several kinds of fish (including mullet, mackerel, herring, cod) and squid. The diet depends very much on what is available in the area they live in and also on the season.

• On average an adult dolphin will eat 4-9% of its body weight in fish, so a 250 kg (550 lb) dolphin will eat 10-22.5 kg (22-50 lb) fish per day.

• Dolphins use echolocation to find food. They then use a variety of methods to catch their food:

• Dolphin pods will encircle a school of fish. As the pod keeps tight control of the fish, individual dolphins will swim into the school and take turns eating.

• Dolphins will chase fish into shallow water. This is called corraling, which makes it easier to capture the fish.

• Working in partnership with tuna, a dolphin pod will encircle a school of fish while the tuna swim beneath the school to prevent their escape from the bottom; some of the dolphins jump and splash to increase the amount of oxygen and therefore the amount of bubbles in the water. This causes the small fish to become “dizzy”. This is when the dolphins take turns feeding; once they have had their fill, they swim away and let the tuna feed on the remaining fish.

• Some dolphins will use their melon or their flukes (tail fins) to stun their prey, sometimes flipping them out of the water.

••••• Do you have a question about dolphins? Author, Margaret Gillrie-Fraser will be pleased to answer them via her website: http://the-dolphin-way.com