"He's not asking for belly rubs, said Liz Sandeman, co-founder of the Marine Connections charity, who has monitored solitary dolphins since 1989. It makes him sound like a toy. Last week, reports suggested he was trying to drown two female swimmers after pushing them under water before kayakers intervened. He was definitely not trying to drown people. If that dolphin wanted to drown someone, it could easily do it."
"Reggie is becoming more boisterous over the weeks. He's a juvenile, he's not adult. But he's around 1,000lbs [454kg]. Over the coming months he will become larger. He will become powerful. He doesn't really know the harm he could be doing to us in the water. So he's definitely not being aggressive. And he's definitely not a dangerous dolphin. The situation is becoming dangerous, for the swimmers and the dolphin."
Reggie is a solitary-sociable juvenile bottlenose dolphin lingering in Lyme Bay, separated from his pod and believed to be the 16th lone cetacean recorded in UK waters in 35 years. Young male dolphins sometimes break away due to a fission-fusion social structure. Reggie has rapidly habituated to swimmers, kayakers and boats in the busy bay and bears scars from a propeller strike. Social media footage and photographs have led to misinterpretations of his behavior, including suggestions he sought belly rubs or tried to drown swimmers. Reggie is not intentionally aggressive or dangerous, but his increasing size and boisterousness could unintentionally harm people and place both him and swimmers at risk.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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