12.02.2024 – World Dolphin Day

For us at Lobosonda, every day is a Dolphin day. We adore these beautiful, social and intelligent marine mammals and can call us lucky enough to observe them almost every day of the year. Lobosonda was the first company to establish whale watching on the island, in 2003. This was only 22 years after the last Sperm whale was hunted on the island. Whales were never caught in large numbers around Madeira, at least, not compared to other oceans in the world. Isn’t it incredible how much our view onto these amazing animals changed in such a short time period? If you ever came with us on a tour and managed to see dolphins or whales up close, you will find it unbelievable that people were capable of hunting these fascinating creatures. Now the most incredible fact is that there are nations that, until today, still hunt dolphins and whales in large numbers. The “World Dolphin Day” was established by Sea Shepherd to commemorate what was probably the largest hunt of cetaceans in a single day in history – a super pod of 1428 Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus acutus) was slaughtered on the 12th of September 2021 in the Faroe Islands. The dolphin hunt is still happening in Faroe islands, as unnecessary whaling is happening in other nations as well, even these cruelities have long been exposed to the public. There are several petitions and actions you can participate in to help stop whale hunt, for example: Sea Sheperd, Stop the Grind, and on our webpage you will also find some more links and petitions to take action.

Let this be a reason to be even more grateful for the precious dolphins we were able to find on our today’s tours (under quite challenging weather conditions, I must say): Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis), Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) ann Rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis).

By Sarah Kather

Sightings of the day

Ribeira Brava

09:30 Trip cancelled due to bad weather conditions

13:30 No sightings

Stenella

09:30 Atlantic spotted dolphins

14:00 Atlantic spotted dolphins

17:00 Bottlenose dolphins, Rough-toothed dolphins