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Risso’s Dolphin

Risso’s dolphins are strikingly different from most other dolphins, easily recognized by their blunt heads, tall dorsal fins, and heavily scarred skin. These scars — earned from social interactions and encounters with other animals — can lead to some of these mammals appearing almost completely white.

 

Adult Risso’s dolphins can grow up to 4 meters (13 feet) long and weigh between 300–500 kilograms (660–1,100 pounds). Calves are born a dark gray, brown, or black, but their skin lightens with age and becomes marked with white scratches from other dolphins’ teeth, encounters with prey like squids, or parasites like cookiecutter sharks. In addition to squid, Risso’s dolphins also eat fish, krill, and other cephalopods like octopus, tracking down their prey with echolocation.

Found in temperate, subtropical, and tropical waters worldwide, these dolphins prefer deeper waters of around 1,005 meters (3,300 feet), but are also found in shallower, coastal waters. They often gather in social groups between 10 and 30 individuals, although they may travel alone or in loose groups of up to thousands of dolphins. At the surface, Risso’s dolphins can frequently be seen breaching, tail slapping, and leaping out of the water to communicate with other Risso’s dolphins.

 

 

Risso’s dolphins can face threats from entanglement or accidental capture in commercial fishing gear. They are also affected by noise pollution like that from seismic surveys and naval sonar, which can disrupt their normal behavior and sometimes lead to strandings. However, the Risso’s dolphin population is still abundant, and this species is currently classified as Least Concern on IUCN Red List.

 

 

Seismic airgun blasting, which is done in search of oil and gas, creates one of the loudest manmade sounds in the ocean, which can be extremely disruptive to marine animals. For marine animals like dolphins, sound plays an essential role in feeding, mating, communicating, mother-calf bonding, and avoiding predators — meaning that these loud blasts impact almost every aspect of their life. Oceana is campaigning to protect our coast from the expansion of dirty and dangerous offshore drilling and exploration.

 

 

 

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