Dolphins travelling record-breaking distances

It has been discovered that British dolphins have been travelling record-breaking distances. Seven bottlenose dolphins identified in the Moray Firth were tracked to islands on the west coast of Scotland and three of those to locations as far afield as Cork and Galway off southern Ireland.

The distance of more than 1,300km (808 miles) is a new point-to-point distance record for the species. One of the dolphins, six of which are female, has also been matched with an animal seen regularly in the mid 1990s from the coast of Cornwall. Photographs of individual dolphins' dorsal fins enabled the scientists to identify which animals had been at the two Scottish sites and establish that three had made the record-breaking journey.

The bottlenose dolphin population in the Moray Firth is one of the two major resident groups in British waters and some of the region has been designated a Special Area Of Conservation. These dolphins however are threatened by an increase in boat traffic due to new marinas, as well as the activities of the fossil fuel industry and renewable energy developments, including an offshore wind farm.