Brookfield Zoo helps rescue Florida dolphin

With a little help from Chicago, a year-and-a-half-old dolphin calf named Fergie survived a life-threatening tangle with fishing lines near Marco Island, Florida last week.

The Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program led efforts to remove the fishing line from Fergie’s tail, clean his wound and administer antibiotics, according to a Thursday news release from the Chicago Zoological Society, which manages Brookfield Zoo.

This is the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program’s second dolphin rescue in just over two months, the news release stated.

“We are extremely happy with the outcome of this situation, but we sure wish that we didn’t have to take these measures at all,” Randy Wells, vice president of marine mammal conservation for the society, was quoted as saying in a statement. Wells also is director of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program.

The Chicago Zoological Society has operated the Florida-based Sarasota Dolphin Research Program since 1989.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service declared Fergie’s entanglement life-threatening, kicking off a rescue effort involving about 50 people from around 10 Florida organizations that do marine animal rescues, according to the release.

First, the team waited around two and a half hours for Fergie to swim to shallow waters. Then, scientists executed the rescue in under a half hour, the release stated.

Fergie was swimming with his mother, a dolphin named Skipper, at the time, according to the release. Skipper was rescued from an entanglement in 2014, as was Fergie’s brother Seymour in 2012.

Wells stressed the importance of taking precautions when fishing.

“Entanglements and other human-induced injuries to dolphins can be prevented,” Wells said in his statement. “Getting fishing gear out of the water when dolphins are nearby, as well as securing gear considered trash such that it can’t get into the environment, can eliminate this risk to dolphins.”