It's Jack the Flipper! Killer dolphin on the loose in British waters murders shark and baby dolphin
The bottlenose dolphin, which has been nicknamed Jack the Flipper, was caught on camera attacking a smooth-hound shark last week.
Meanwhile, three months ago it was also seen killing a baby common dolphin by repeatedly tossing it out of the water.
The killer dolphin is part of a pod that lives off New Quay, Cardigan Bay, near Aberystwyth, mid Wales.
It was initially named Anakin - after the young Jedi knight in the Star Wars franchise -by dolphin watcher Sarah Michelle Wyer.
'I have not seen a dolphin throw a shark out in the eight years I have been watching them,' she told What's The Jam.
'One of the skippers I work with has seen them throw tope out of the water, which is another small member of the shark family.
'But when Anakin killed the young common dolphin, it was the first recorded instance of this behaviour happening in Cardigan Bay.
'It is unknown why this dolphin chose to do it - as it would have been of no threat.
'Bottlenose dolphins are highly intelligent creatures and are capable of many unusual behaviours - many not so pleasant.
'They are not 'friendly flipper' like many assume. This particular dolphin seems to have a very unusual personality.
'Dolphins are known to kill porpoises in a behaviour known as porpicide. But despite the name common dolphin, they aren't common around here.
'And we now think this could be because of the bottlenose dolphins.'
Experts have been left baffled by the killer dolphin's behaviour.
A spokesperson for Dolphin Spotting Boat trips, who Sarah works with, added: 'We were very surprised when one of our local dolphins, Anakin brought what we originally thought was a large salmon past the boat in its mouth and then threw the fish out the water.
'To our surprise it was not a salmon at all but a member of the shark family called a smooth hound.
'We aren't sure if there are many records of smooth hounds being part of a bottlenose dolphin's diet. Smooth hounds grow up to 4ft long.
'Bottlenose dolphins are opportunistic feeders and have a very wide ranging diet of a variety of species of fish, squid and crustaceans.
'We aren't 100 per cent sure whether Anakin ate the shark or whether him and his friends were simply playing with it as they do.
'Earlier this year, Anakin was also involved in a not-so-common incident where he played the main role in the demise of the young common dolphin.
'Anakin's dolphinality is a very unusual one to say the least.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
Noel Gallagher opens up about his brother Liam on Oasis reunion tour: ‘He's been amazing'
Noel Gallagher has opened up about his feelings towards his long-estranged brother Liam during Oasis' sold-out global reunion tour for the first time, saying: 'He's been amazing … it's great being back in the band with Liam.' Oasis announced they would be reuniting in August 2024, 15 years after their split in 2009 when Noel quit the band after a backstage brawl at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris, saying he 'simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer'. The brothers continued to trade barbs for years and rejected any suggestion they would bury the hatchet, making their reunion a pleasant surprise for their fans. At their first show in Cardiff, the crowd responded with whistles and applause when the brothers briefly embraced at the end of the gig. Speaking to TalkSport's Andy Goldstein and Darren Bent on Tuesday, Noel Gallagher said he had been 'completely blown away' by the tour so far. 'Liam's smashing it. I'm proud of him,' he said. 'I couldn't do the stadium thing like he does it, it's not in my nature. But I've got to say, I kind of look and I think, 'Good for you mate.' He's been amazing. 'It's great just to be back with Bonehead [Paul Arthurs] and Liam and just be doing it again,' he continued. 'I guess when it's all said and done we will sit and reflect on it, but it's great being back in the band with Liam, I forgot how funny he was.' Noel said he was taken aback by the fan response at their first show in Cardiff in July. 'I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally, I grossly underestimated what I was getting into. It was kind of after about five minutes, I was like, all right, can I just go back to the dressing room and start this again?' he said. 'I've done stadiums before and all that, but I don't mind telling you, my legs had turned to jelly after about halfway through the second song. It's been an amazing thing. Really is an amazing thing. It's difficult to put into words, actually. 'Every night is the crowd's first night, you know what I mean? So every night's got that kind of same energy to it, but it's been truly amazing. I'm not usually short for words, but I can't really articulate it.' Oasis has already played 17 dates across the UK and Ireland, and are continuing their away around the world with performances to come in the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and South America. The Oasis Live '25 tour is due to end in November in Brazil.
Western Telegraph
6 hours ago
- Western Telegraph
Other Voices Cardigan festival 2025 announces headliners
They are set to play at Other Voices Cardigan in 2025, which will take place in the town from October 30 to November 1. The sixth edition of the festival will see more than 100 live performances across Cardigan, with every corner of the town—cafés, chapels, bars, bakeries and community spaces—coming alive with music. Philip King, founder of Other Voices, said: "We always look forward to bringing Other Voices to Aberteifi/Cardigan and our 2025 programme will highlight the abundant and diverse range of brilliant new music that is flowing out of Ireland and Wales today. "This year's Clebran series of trilingual conversations will look at big picture issues through the lens of the local, with a perspective that reflects the shared as well as the many distinct identities in Ireland and Wales that we celebrate here through our languages and music. "With our partners at Mwldan and Triongl, we are grateful for the opportunity to play our part in deepening and strengthening our Ireland-Wales connections as envisaged by our two Governments in the Ireland-Wales Shared Statement and Joint Action Plan 2021-25. "We look forward to seeing Other Voices/Lleisiau Eraill continuing to grow and flourish in the coming years." This year's first church headliners include Westside Cowboy, six-time RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Award winners Ye Vagabonds, and Welsh musician Gruff Rhys, who will be performing material from his upcoming album Dim Probs, set for release in September. All St Mary's Church performances will be streamed live on the Other Voices YouTube channel. More than 50 acts will perform throughout the weekend, with BBC broadcaster Huw Stephens returning as host. Newly announced acts include Afrocluster, Annie-Dog, Basht, Carys Eleri, Clare Sands, Dewin, Dionne Bennett, Internet Fatigue, George Houston, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Diver, Lullahush, Meabh McKenna, Meryl Streak, Nancy Williams, Piaras O'Lorcain, Súil Amhain, Sexy Tadhg, Sustinere, and VRï. Other Voices Cardigan is produced by South Wind Blows in partnership with Mwldan and Triongl, with support from the Welsh Government, Ceredigion County Council, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, and BBC Cymru Wales. The festival will be filmed for future television broadcast on BBC Cymru Wales, RTÉ, BBC iPlayer, and RTÉ Player. Dilwyn Davies, CEO of Mwldan, said: "We're utterly delighted to be able to bring the fifth physical edition of Other Voices to Aberteifi in 2025. "Year on year, we've seen fantastic growth in audience numbers as the word has spread about what a special festival experience this is. "We're ready to welcome audiences and artists from Ireland, Wales and elsewhere to our gorgeous small town on the westerly edge of Wales to create and share some unforgettable magic. "We're also deeply indebted to our funders for supporting this fantastic event."
BBC News
7 hours ago
- BBC News
Legal drama Mudtown goes behind the scenes of Newport court
A new dual-language series is set to take viewers behind the scenes at a Welsh criminal starring an all-Welsh cast including Erin Richards, Tom Cullen, Lauren Morais, Lloyd Meredith and Kimberley Nixon, was filmed in both Welsh and English and is set at Newport Magistrates' sees magistrate Claire Lewis Jones navigate her loyalty to her community being put to the test, complicated by the re-emergence of past acquaintance Saint Pete, played by Cullen and dubbed "the Tony Soprano of Newport"."We're representing a part of Wales that isn't seen very often," said Richards. Gotham star Richards, who is originally from Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, said the Severn Screen production which will air on S4C in Welsh and UKTV in English was "one of my favourite projects that I've ever done"."I didn't even know what a magistrate was when I first signed up to this wonderful project," she told Lucy Owen on Radio Wales, adding she was advised by writers Hannah Daniel and Georgia Lee to spend time in courtrooms in both Cardiff and Newport to get a sense of what it was really like."You see a lot of courtroom dramas, but it's kind of heavy on the drama when you see it on TV."Obviously they're there to help people and do good for the community… but also in between when people were in the dock and it was just the people working there, they were just having normal conversations, and getting on like work colleagues do. Which I hope we have portrayed in the piece as well."She continued: "Magistrates are amazing. They don't get paid and they have to do a lot of training to get where they are. "They are dealing with quite difficult cases sometimes and every case I saw was just them trying to bring some sort of common sense to the situation." Richards, who has a two-year-old son, River, and is expecting her second child, said she was able to relate to her character in many ways."Claire is a mother, she's a magistrate, she's trying to hold down a couple of jobs and, on the surface, she appears to be a good person, until the end of the first episode when Saint Pete comes into her courtroom," she said."We realise she's got quite a dark past. They call him the Tony Soprano of Newport and he asks her for a favour because he says 'you owe me one'."I've made mistakes in my past and I think we've all had roads that we've had to choose between. I've never done anything as bad as Claire, but I sort of empathise with that part of her." She said it was "a joy" to work with Cullen as similarly to their characters they have a long history, with Richards introducing Cullen to his now-fiancé, and the couple living just "down the road" from her in Cardiff."It was really interesting because Tom and I have been friends for a really long time, I think we started knowing each other when we were 16 or 17," she said. "I just think the history that we have as people and the knowledge that we have – the mistakes that we've made, the parties we've been to, whatever we've done in the past – then transferred into our characters."Speaking about recording scenes back-to-back in English and Welsh, Richards said it was challenging at first but, after a while, her "brain just clicked"."It means that you get a lot fewer takes, because obviously you have to do it in both languages and you don't have any more time in the day," she said."A lot of things on Welsh TV, quite rightly, all the language is perfect. People mutate perfectly and they don't use a lot of English words. "But what I really enjoyed is that we portrayed the kind of Welsh that you would hear in Newport, through Claire, which is also the kind of Welsh I speak."It's not as sophisticated, but it is real and I really thought it was important that we are representing an area of Wales in that way, because that's how people speak there."
