00:00 We were actually about to head in for the day and we saw this big splash in the distance.
00:06 So we thought we'd go over and see what it was.
00:09 The closer we actually got to it, we realised that it didn't look the same as the other
00:15 dolphins we'd been seeing all day.
00:17 It seemed to have like distinct white bits and also was very dark, so it was a bit different.
00:22 And so we thought we'll hang around for a bit, try and see it again, because it had
00:26 kind of swum up a little bit.
00:28 So we followed it in total for about 45 minutes and got quite a lot of photos and we managed
00:33 to get a few videos as well.
00:36 And so once we came in for the day, we started trying to work out what we'd actually seen
00:41 and came across that we think that it's got this condition called piebaldism.
00:46 And had you heard of dolphins with piebaldism before?
00:50 So before this, I hadn't, but as soon as we started looking it up, it was pretty obvious
00:56 that that's what we were seeing.
00:58 And you're pretty certain that it is actually piebaldism and the dolphins not sick from
01:02 something?
01:03 Yeah, 100%.
01:04 So the dolphin was an adult size.
01:08 It was within the group of common bottlenose.
01:10 So it was a pretty similar size to the other dolphins it was with.
01:13 It also wasn't particularly skinny or didn't have any other weird looking lesions on it.
01:19 There's a pretty famous dolphin over in America called Patches that looks pretty similar to
01:25 this one and has the same condition.
01:27 And what causes the condition?
01:28 So it's a genetic mutation, but apart from that, because it hasn't been seen that much,
01:35 not many people actually know like really what causes it.
01:38 And did you name it?
01:40 Yes, we did.
01:42 Good stuff.
01:45 And so how excited were you when you realised that this was the first sighting of a dolphin
01:52 with piebaldism in Australian waters?
01:55 We were pretty excited.
01:56 So when I started looking up the literature and what had been documented, I realised that
02:02 it had never been talked about or seen in Australia before.
02:05 So obviously everyone kind of knows about Megaloo, the white humpback whale.
02:09 So we were kind of like, oh, we've got our own thought of Megaloo in the dolphin world.
02:15 And so you were out there, and this is in Harvey Bay on a research trip.
02:21 Can you tell us about the research you're doing?
02:23 Yeah, so I'm actually doing my PhD, looking at the connectivity of dolphins from Caloundra
02:30 up to Harvey Bay.
02:31 So we're looking at what species are present and how connected those populations are.
02:36 And what species are present there?
02:39 So of our resident ones, we've got the common bottlenose dolphin, the Indo-Pacific bottlenose
02:45 dolphins, which are a bit smaller, and the more vulnerable Australian humpback dolphins.
02:50 And how long have you been involved in that research project?
02:53 So I'm two years in now.
02:56 And what have you found about the connectivity up until now?
03:00 So before this, there had actually been no research done on the Sunshine Coast on the
03:06 dolphins that were present.
03:08 And up in Harvey Bay, the published research that had been done was over 10 years ago.
03:12 So kind of everything that I'm doing is pretty novel and exciting.
03:18 And so how are you getting an understanding on the connectivity, apart from going out
03:24 in boats and observing them?
03:27 Are you involved in dives as well?
03:30 No, so we take photos of their dorsal fins to ID each individual dolphin that we see.
03:37 And we're also doing some genetic sampling as well to see how connected they are.
03:42 And are there, have you noticed any mixing between the pods in the last two years that
03:47 you've been involved in the project, or are they pretty separate?
03:51 So like within each region, so up in Harvey Bay, then further down in the Great Sandy
03:57 Straits and down on the Sunshine Coast, like the population seems to be pretty consistent
04:03 and just together.
04:04 But within them, the groups that they hang out in tend to change.
04:08 And what can you tell us about the group that Speckles is in?
04:11 So I'd actually never seen any of the other four dolphins it was with before.
04:18 They were some common bottlenose dolphins, so we don't see them as often, but we do occasionally
04:23 see them.
04:24 There was a mum and a calf in there, and we don't know what gender the others were.
04:29 And with the pods, is that a quite a small pod to be getting around?
04:33 You said Speckles was in a group of four.
04:35 Are they much bigger pods or a lot of them quite small?
04:40 It's something that I have been noticing as part of my studies that the ones in Harvey
04:45 Bay do tend to be in these slightly smaller groups of about five individuals quite often,
04:51 whereas down on the Sunshine Coast, they seem to be in much larger groups of about 20 upwards.
04:57 And the group that Speckles was in, it looked like he or she, because I'm guessing you don't
05:01 know the sex of Speckles yet, but it looked like he or she was well accepted by the group.
05:09 Yeah, it was at first a little bit further away from them, but for most of the 45 minutes
05:16 we were following it, it was with them.
05:20 And are you expecting you're going to see it again over the next couple of years?
05:26 So the next day we went out and we spent about three hours in the middle of Harvey Bay trying
05:32 to find it again.
05:33 We didn't have any luck.
05:36 And then this year when I was up there again, we didn't sight it again.
05:39 So we think it's more of an offshore individual that had come in that day, but we're hoping
05:45 we do see it again.
05:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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