Cape Town - While celebrating his son’s wedding on a boat filled with family and friends, Lloyd Edwards of Raggy Charters Marine-Eco Cruises spotted a rare albino dolphin off St Croix Island in Algoa Bay earlier this month.
The dolphin was among a pod of about 200 in so-called “Lovers Lane”, a protected bay on the west side of St Croix Island, a favourite hangout and breeding spot for bottlenose dolphins.
Edwards, who is also a marine conservationist, thought he had seen it all after 31 years of marine cruises in Algoa Bay, but during a morning cruise on April 4 he was left stunned by the sight of a metre-long albino bottlenose dolphin calf, about a month old.
“It was a very special day as we were celebrating my son Kalahari’s wedding, where he tied the knot with his new German bride Antonia. The boat was full to the brim with family and friends.
“I was on the crow’s nest when we approached Lover’s Lane, the favourite hangout for big schools of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins. All of a sudden, I saw a white flash in the water among a pod of around 200 dolphins.”
Edwards said that in Algoa Bay they have seen quite a few instances of partial albinism, including leucistic (a partial lack of pigmentation) penguins, a white humpback whale, a pink dolphin and a few white Southern Right calves, but never a true albino.
“True albinism is so rare that only a few individuals have been observed since the 1950s... As albinos usually stand out from the rest of the school, it makes them an easy meal for predatory sharks. This one was always swimming in the middle of the school and was being protected by its mother and the rest of the adults.
“Unfortunately, they also attract human attention and this has led to them being captured for display in aquariums,” he said.
According to the Blue World Institute of Marine Research and Conservation, albinism has been recorded in about 20 species of cetaceans, including the blue whale, grey whale, sperm whale and bottlenose dolphin.
Karen Keeton, from Raggy Charters, said they were having a competition to name the albino calf and the winner would receive a free cruise to view the bottlenose dolphins at St Croix Island.
More information can be found on the Raggy Charters Facebook page.
Department spokesperson Albi Modise said, “An albino dolphin can be described as an individual dolphin with a genetic condition that resulted in little or no pigmentation. The condition is rare in the wild for cetaceans (dolphins and whales), at least in South African populations.”
Modise said the condition is inherited and can be passed onto the offspring, the first record of an anomalously pigmented dolphin was of a Heaviside dolphin in the 1980s but no photograph of this encounter was taken.