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Aquarium dolphin pregnant
Hana's 2nd calf expected this summer
Hana, the dolphin, is expecting another calf.

Andy Ivens, The Province
Published: Friday, January 26, 2007

VANCOUVER - Hana the dolphin is pregnant and her caregivers at the Vancouver Aquarium are chirping in anticipation.

"We're very happy to announce that our Pacific white-sided dolphin, Hana, is expecting a calf this summer," aquarium veterinarian Marty Haulena said yesterday.

Suspicions were confirmed by a blood test, an ultrasound and observations of her behaviour.

Hana gave birth to a stillborn calf last June.

"A lot can happen between now and [her due date]," cautioned Haulena.

If Hana's pregnancy is successful, the calf would be the first live dolphin born at the aquarium in its 50 years.

Now 12 years old, Hana is entering her prime calf-bearing years, Haulena said. A dolphin's life expectancy is around 30 years.

There's no guesswork as to who the father is -- Spin is the aquarium's only male Pacific white-sided dolphin.

"Introductions started in earnest last fall," said Haulena. The gestation period is about 12 months.

"Hana looks great. She's starting to show a little bit."

Aquarium staff were unaware Hana was first pregnant when she was flown here in October 2005 from Japan with a companion female Pacific white-sided dolphin named Helen.

"There is a lot about these animals we don't know," said Clint Wright, the aquarium's senior vice-president of operations.

There are thousands of bottle-nosed dolphins on display in aquariums worldwide, but Wright said, "In the whole of North America, there are only 30 of these guys [in aquariums].

"We're really just finding out a lot of things about pregnancies, monitoring the calf through the birth."

Wright said the aquarium's long-term plan is to show six to eight of the high-jumping marine mammals -- four to five adults with two to three calves -- in a new, larger pool scheduled to open in 2009.

"We want to learn about these animals, we want to do research with them, we want to talk about the coast here, so it's a perfect animal for us," said Wright.

"One of the things we're looking at is doing some work on their hearing ability . . . We're trying to work out how to have them avoid [fishing] nets, especially the fixed nets that [some fish boats] use."

Hana and Helen were rescued from a fish net and taken in by the Enoshima Aquarium in Japan. As rehabilitation animals, they fit into one of the aquarium's stated goals of not taking marine mammals out of the wild.

"We're seeing more and more success with [dolphin] pregnancies," said Wright.

"If you look at the bottle-nosed dolphin, [the rate of successful births in captivity] is way above what the rate in the wild is."