14 April 2017: World Dolphin Day

World Dolphin Day is celebrated annually on 14 April. It began in the 1990s to focus on the preservation of dolphins and marine animals.

There are 25 species of dolphin and they all vary in size and diet depending on where they live.

The smallest species is Hector's dolphin, and they weigh 50-60 kilograms. Dolphins eat about 5% of their body weight per day, so for Hector's it should be around 3 kilograms of food, and for larger species like Bottlenosed dolphins which can weigh as much as 500 kilograms they eating about 25 kilograms of food per day.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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