Scientists plan prosthetic tail for dolphin

[Roon]

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) - The news from Indian River Lagoon was too familiar - another dolphin gravely injured by human thoughtlessness. So was the anger.

The baby bottlenose dolphin - dubbed Winter - lost her tail, but maybe her life could be saved.

"How could somebody be this stupid?" said McCulloch, director of dolphin and whale research at Florida's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution. "The first thing is the anger. The next thing you do is channel that anger into a solution."

The solution for Winter may be a prosthetic tail. If the logistics can be worked out, Winter's prosthesis would be the first for a dolphin who lost its tail and the key joint that allows it to move in powerful up and down strokes. Another dolphin in Japan has a prosthesis, the first in the world, to replace a missing part of its tail.
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=68510

[wildhorses]

1. now this is cool

:loveya: