Dolphin Tale: Winter

The Heartwarming Story about Winter

So I'm sure many of you in South Africa watched the MNet movie last night "Dolphin Tale" ? I had been meaning to watch it as I'm such a HUGE Dolphin fan but never got around to it. Well, am I glad I finally got to watch it! What an inspiring movie!

Let me give you a little background on Winter, the dolphin that this movie was based on. Winter was a 3 month old bottle-nosed Dolphin that was caught in a crab trap off the coast of Florida. She was rescued and taken to the Clear Water Marine Aquarium. Due to the shortage of blood to her tail caused by being trapped, Winter lost her tail.

 I know what you're thinking, "how can a dolphin swim without a tail?". Winter was a fighter and learnt how to swim with a "side to side" motion, instead of the normal "up and down" motion. This however was damaging her spine, so the people at Clearwater Marine Aquarium had to come up with another plan to save Winter.

The collaborative efforts of Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics, Inc., a leading human prosthetics company, with Dr. Mike Walsh, a leading marine mammal veterinarian, and CMA's world-class marine mammal trainers all came together to create a prosthetic tail for Winter . Interesting fact about dolphins, they have highly-sensitive skin so creating a 'sock' for the prosthetic was quite a challenge. After many attempts however, the team were able to create a prosthetic tail for Winter.

Nowadays, you can find Winter happily swimming around in a beautiful pool at Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida, where fans from all over the world go to visit her!

Check out the website for Clearwater Marine Aquarium called See Winter where you can view Winter's webcam :)

Information and pictures: See Winter

I would like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone that was involved in helping Winter, you are all amazing!

Don't forget to check out the website for more information on Winter and what you can do to help out!