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Cornish Red Data (2009)

The descriptive text, below the map, is from the Cornish Red Data Book (2009). The map on this web page depicts the organisms distribution and shows the records made pre-2000 and those made since.

Tursiops truncatus - Bottlenose Dolphin



Range & Status

The Bottlenose Dolphin occurs in cold temperate to tropical waters in all seas. It is locally frequent inshore off the coasts of Spain, Portugal, the north-west France, western Ireland, north-east Scotland, in the Irish Sea (particularly Cardigan Bay and south-east Ireland), and in the English Channel. The species also occurs offshore in the north Atlantic as far north as the Faroe Islands. It is seldom seen north of the UK or south of New Zealand. Bottlenose Dolphins are reported to be less frequent in the southernmost North Sea than they were in the 1960s and 1970s (UK Biodiversity Group, 1999.) There has been a 93% decrease in sightings and a 70% decrease in group size of the small inshore group off

Cornwall. It has apparently declined from approximately 17 animals to six since the early 1990s (Doyle et al ., 2008).

Strandings

Strandings in the region recorded in the following years: 1915 (1), 1925 (1), 1928 (5), 1929 (1), 1930 (1), 1933 (1), 1934 (3), 1935 (1), 1937 (1), 1939 (1), 1945 (2), 1948 (1), 1960 (1), 1967 (1), 1973 (1), 1976 (2), 1978 (1), 1982 (1), 1985 (1), 1987 (1), 1988 (2) 1990 (2), 1991 (1), 1992 (2), 1998 (1), 2003 (1), 2004 (2), 2005 (1), 2006 (2), 2007 (3).

Sightings

Numerous sightings every year between 1994 and 2007.

Conservation

Listed as of Least Concern (Hammond, P.S., Bearzi, G., Bj\'f8rge, A., Forney, K.,

Karczmarski, L., Kasuya, T., Perrin, W.F., Scott, M.D., Wang, J.Y., Wells, R.S. & Wilson, B. 2008d. Tursiops truncatus . In: IUCN 2008. 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. . Downloaded on 18 March 2009.) A UK Biodiversity Grouped Plan species.

Source:

I.J. Bennallick, S. Board, C.N. French, P.A. Gainey, C. Neil, R. Parslow, A. Spalding and P.E. Tompsett. eds. 2009. Red Data Book for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. 2nd Edition.Croceago Press.

The Cornish Red Data Book Project was led by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Federation for Biological Recorders (CISFBR). The full text and species accounts (minus the maps) are available on the CISFBR website.


Cornish Biodiversity Network. 2017.