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Dolphins experience high mortality rates through the first year in both wild and human care settings, and first-time pregnancies are always considered high risk. Though DRC’s cautiously optimistic staff has thrown every possible medical advantage at the baby dolphin, the little one remains in a guarded condition through such a vulnerable period of life. At just 30 pounds, weight gain over her first few weeks and months will prove critical for the youngling. Using a combination of this milk and a special infant formula developed by SeaWorld, the baby receives nutrition through a bottle or small tube every 90 minutes, allowing her to take in the necessary fatty calories while still reaping the immune system benefits from her own mother’s milk. ALEX RICKERT/Keys WeeklyĪfter months of prep work with her trainers leading up to the birth, Gypsi has learned to voluntarily allow the team to extract milk from her mammary glands using gentle suction from a specially-designed dolphin equivalent of a breast pump. Dolphin mom Gypsi voluntarily allows trainers Sarah Ivkovich, center, and Kelly Jayne Rodriguez to collect milk for her baby using a specially-designed pump. Some may be surprised to learn that as mammals, baby dolphins drink milk from their mothers by curling their specially-designed tongues to create a watertight seal around the nipple in the mother’s mammary slit. Nutrition for the calf is one of the team’s main focuses, and though the little one’s mother is not physically present in the pool, Gypsi has pulled her weight in a different capacity. And when she’s tired, she simply cruises into her trainers’ arms and falls asleep for a quick nap. Though she’ll venture off on her own at times, her comfort zone is what’s known as the echelon position – swimming slightly beneath the lower body of her caretaker, just as she would ordinarily do with her mother.Įarly on, she even allowed trainers to “surf” her, laying on their chests for an easy ride around the surface of her pool. Since the move, the little one has had an endless rotation of animal care staff swimming by her side nearly 24 hours a day, including three-person, three-hour overnight shifts every night – even through last weekend’s tropical storm. Scott Gearhart gives the calf her morning checkup. In an effort to provide the infant with the nutrition and supervision she needed, DRC’s animal care experts elected to move the calf to the facility’s medical pool, a separate habitat that would allow her to be more easily supervised and bottle fed around the clock.