Crew tracks a rescued dolphin in Southwest Florida

When a young dolphin named Fergie found himself in a life-threatening situation, the dolphin explorer answered the call.

Fergie’s story is one example of why tracking dolphins is essential. Fergie is loving life in the beautiful Marco Island waters. But Fergie’s story rests upon the dolphin explorer crew’s ability to track dolphins.

When Bob McConville sees a flip of a fin, he makes sure to take a picture and puts it in his book of Marco Island’s water residents.

“You see, this guy has one little notch in the middle, and then right at the curve in the top, there’s another little knock, and if you look at this guy here, this would be parton he’s six years old,” McConville said.

While working with the dolphin explorer crew is always exciting, one dolphin is alive because of their work.

“The morning of the rescue, we were the first group on the water to actually you know, locate Fergie and her mom,” McConville said.

A few weeks ago, a good samaritan contacted McConville and his crew because they worried about a dolphin caught in the fishing line. Turns out that dolphin was 19-month-old Fergie.

They let FWC know, and they asked them to keep track of Fergie through pictures. So, for two weeks, McConville did, but the line kept getting tighter and tighter.

“The last photos that we sent them, they could actually see the raw skin where the line was cutting into the, into the skin,” McConville said.

“NOAH looked at the photos and says yes, this is life-threatening,” McConville said

On Tuesday, April 25, eight organizations, including Clearwater Aquarium and Seaworld, came to Fergie’s side, saving his life.

“And within three or four days, we had 3040 people down here for a rescue,” McConville said.

Monday, WINK News saw Fergie swimming with his whole pod. McConville said Fergie’s doing great.

Tracking dolphins lets those studying them know how they’re doing. McConville told WINK News many of them left after the hurricane and stayed away for five or six months.

One reason for that could be that dolphins ordinarily don’t eat dead fish. And after the hurricane, the Southwest Florida waters were filled with dead fish. But, maybe because the fish are back, the dolphins decided to follow suit.