Tursiops
truncatus
Range & Status
The Bottlenose Dolphin occurs in cold temperate to tropical waters in all seas. It is locally frequent inshore off the coasts of Spain, Portugal, the north-west France, western Ireland, north-east Scotland, in the Irish Sea (particularly Cardigan Bay and south-east Ireland), and in the English Channel. The species also occurs offshore in the north Atlantic as far north as the Faroe Islands. It is seldom seen north of the UK or south of New Zealand. Bottlenose Dolphins are reported to be less frequent in the southernmost North Sea than they were in the 1960s and 1970s (UK Biodiversity Group, 1999.) There has been a 93% decrease in sightings and a 70% decrease in group size of the small inshore group off
Cornwall. It has apparently declined from approximately 17 animals to six since the early 1990s (Doyle et al ., 2008).
Strandings
Strandings in the region recorded in the following years: 1915 (1), 1925 (1), 1928 (5), 1929 (1), 1930 (1), 1933 (1), 1934 (3), 1935 (1), 1937 (1), 1939 (1), 1945 (2), 1948 (1), 1960 (1), 1967 (1), 1973 (1), 1976 (2), 1978 (1), 1982 (1), 1985 (1), 1987 (1), 1988 (2) 1990 (2), 1991 (1), 1992 (2), 1998 (1), 2003 (1), 2004 (2), 2005 (1), 2006 (2), 2007 (3).
Sightings
Numerous sightings every year between 1994 and 2007.
Conservation
Listed as of Least Concern (Hammond, P.S., Bearzi,
G., Bj\'f8rge, A., Forney, K., Karczmarski,
L., Kasuya, T., Perrin, W.F., Scott, M.D., Wang,
J.Y., Wells, R.S. & Wilson, B. 2008d. Tursiops
truncatus . In: IUCN 2008. 2008 IUCN Red List of
Threatened Species.