Australia 2004

All images © Laurie & Kairen Wilson 2004


 

 

Monkey Mia - Dolphin Resort

About 35 years ago dolphin's starting coming into the beach at Monkey Mia (pronounced  mya), in Shark Bay.

For years tourists visiting the bay would feed the dolphins all day whatever fish they brought with them.  The dolphins unfortunately became dependent upon the tourist food, the young were never taught how to feed and the infant mortality was around 80% with very few reaching maturity.  The feeding programme is now controlled with only feeding mothers being given a very small (less than 20% of their daily needs) of fish, a maximum of 3 times a day. Watching is strictly supervised by national park wardens with no touching allowed (it passes on human ailments).

For our visit we got up early and were rewarded with 4 adults and 3 pups in  the bay almost immediately.  The dolphins come in very close and whilst wary of the audience they become more confident as they assess the risk. 

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The wardens walk up and down the line of onlookers and the dolphins follow them very closely.  These are totally wild animals and last week proved it by bighting one of the wardens quite badly.  The dolphins are currently being harassed by tiger sharks (up to 18' long) in the bay and the incoming dolphin mood cannot be assessed by the ever smiling face

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Only two fish per dolphin and 2kg  per day

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The pelicans are cute

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This one had tangled fishing line in her wings and was being caught to clear the line.  It takes some doing to grab one of these birds!

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Is Laurie imitating the pelicans?

 

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Laurie is in heaven!
(he's so laid-back we are having to prop him up!)

 

We stayed 2 nights at Monkey Mia and before we left on the second day we visited the beach again to watch the dolphins.  We then realised how fortunate we had been the previous day.  After an hour only a couple of dolphins had appeared and they were reluctant to come too close as there was a much larger crowd.

The day before we had seen 3 visits, each with fairly small groups of people and close encounters of the fishy kind.



 

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