Stories related to: dolphin

Spinner dolphins had better watch out—their pearly whites are again a fast-growing currency in the South Pacific, the Wall Street Journal reports. Economic troubles in the Solomon Islands have caused many to return to the traditional trading chip. “Dolphin teeth are like gold,” says the governor of the nation's central bank. "You keep them as a store of wealth.” More »

One activist calls the Japanese city of Taiji "ground zero for the largest slaughter of dolphins on planet Earth," but locals want him and his cohorts to mind their own business. Residents of Taiji have been eating dolphin meat for hundreds of years and say they have as much right to do so as Westerners have to eat beef, CNN reports. More »

Navy SEALs will be swimming to their targets up to 150% faster when they get a new Pentagon gizmo called a PowerSwim. It looks like a mini-glider that attaches to a diver's legs, Popular Mechanics reports. SEALs reportedly take about 2 hours to master it; they have to learn a unique undulating motion that relieves smaller muscles normally used to swim. More »

A member of a dolphin species so rare that it was reported possibly extinct may have been spotted in the Yangtze River. The baiji, or white flag dolphin, was declared extinct last December, but earlier this month a man shot a video showing what appears to be a baiji frolicking in the river. Hopeful scientists plan to search the area. More »

Calling it a "shocking tragedy," a team of marine scientists have declared the Yangtze river dolphin "likely extinct" after their failure to find a single animal in a recent research expedition. The scientists blamed massive over fishing along the Yangtze as the primary cause of the species' disappearance, the BBC reports. More »