A Rare Sight Witnessed
March 23rd, 2010 | 
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A sad and uncommon sigthing of 6 full-grown tucuxi male dolphins putting to death an infant dolphin has been witnessed by group of university members in Sepetiba Bay, Brazil.
The baby was swimming alongside it’s mother when 6 full-grown males approached them. Four of the males beat back the mother and persisted in to bully her while the other two kept the baby submerged, tossing it in the air and again purposely attempting to drown it while others rammed it with their nozzles. The newborn baby was disoriented and incapable to swim as well after the assault.
The mother was noted a couple of days later but the baby was not with her. This points towards the possiblility that the baby perished of its injuries.
During the assault the mother did all she could to attract the attention of the attackers. She rolled on her back displaying her abdomen giving them the impression she was ready for male attention. When ever she would try to swim to her baby they would pound her back and surround her to forbid her from helping it.
As with most species, the male tucuxi is agressive towards other male dolphins during mating time, but this sighting of a group of males belting down a baby is uncommon.
This is the first sighting registered of this sort. It is possible that this type of act occurs more often then it has been noticed.
Some species of dolphins, which are in the animal group cetaceans along with whales, have been known to exhibit such ferocious conduct. The bottlenose dolphin has been observed two times displaying this type of conduct.
Ms Nery, a witness to the action said,”It is difficult to say if they really attempted to kill the calf or if it was playful behaviour that went too far. But they clearly looked to separate the calf from the mother.”
It is possible that this incident proves that dolphins in the wild state do kill the babys possibly to get the mother to be receptive to their advances again.
The female dolphin does answer to the males approaches just a couple of days after loosing a baby. This does give one the idea that these males killed it for this cause.
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