Fungie- Dingle’s dolphin

This week we were in the area of Killarney in South West Ireland. Killarney has a lovely Caravan Club site located about an hour away from Dingle. Dingle has had a special guest living in its waters called Fungie the dolphin. Fungie is an Irish word meaning fun guy and he was named it by some reporters that came over to meet him. We did the same and drove to dingle to catch a boat trip out to sea to see Fungie.

When we had sailed out of the harbor the boat turned almost immediately with a sighting of him. He put on a little show on the other side of the boat before disappearing back under the water surface. We toured round to try to find him again and then he lept out and followed us, diving through the waves the boat was creating. We were sat at the back of the boat where the bow waves met the waves from the engine so we got some amazing viewings of him. Everyone was taking photos of him and cheering every time he rose to show his smiley face. Eventually he dived down to fish and he said goodbye with one last showing of his face and dorsal fin.

We were keen to learn more about Fungie and so we went to the skipper afterwards to ask some of our questions, so here is a mini fact file about him with some of the information we found out.

FUNGIE FACT FILE

Breed: Bottlenose dolphin.

Age: No one knows but he has been around for 32 years so they recon he is roughly 40 years old.

Gender: Male.

Weight: About 250kg.

Length: 13 feet.

Behaviors: He may be wild but he only fishes in an area of two miles squared, loves playing in waves, is apparently scared of other dolphins because he doesn’t go off with them but instead swims into the harbor like he is being bullied or shooed off.

His territory: Two miles off including the harbour

Favourite time to come out: 8-10 o’clock in the morning.

By Ella Meek