A playful dolphin which has delighted tourists in Venice by leaping from canals and showing off its fish-catching technique is in danger of being killed by the boatloads of sightseers that crowd around it, experts have warned.
The young bottlenose dolphin, nicknamed Mimmo, baffled scientists by frequenting the basin off St Mark’s Square and venturing up the Grand Canal while showing no fear of the traffic of water taxis, ferries and private boats.
“The dolphin curiously approaches boats when it can see people on deck and came to us twice yesterday to show off mullet it had caught in its mouth, which it then let go,” said Luca Mizzan, head of Venice’s Natural History Museum who spent Wednesday in a boat monitoring Mimmo.
Mimmo the dolphin swimming near Dogana di Mare
“We’re perplexed since this is not normal behaviour. The dolphin is confident it can avoid boats, however, it’s dangerous; all it needs is one boat reversing suddenly, while the noise from engines must create total confusion underwater,” he added.
The hubbub on the water has increased since Mimmo appeared off St Mark’s last month, spurring tourists on boats to jostle, throwing fish and even balls into the water.
Water taxis are now telling colleagues via radio to slow down when they spot Mimmo and the coastguard has ordered boats to stay 50 metres away, but Mizzan said that this was a tough task in the congested St Mark’s basin.
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The dolphin first appeared in the Venice lagoon in June, swimming in through one of the three access points from the Adriatic.
“I don’t think it is trapped because it knows how to get out, and it is unusual for a dolphin to stay so long in the lagoon and to be alone, usually they travel in groups,” said Mizzan.
Dolphins have been spotted in the lagoon before. During a 2021 Covid lockdown, two striped dolphins took advantage of the still waters and absence of traffic to hunt cuttlefish.
Bizzen said Mimmo was feasting on the large number of mullet found in the St Mark’s Basin. “It’s like a supermarket; there are so many fish that gondoliers feel like they are rowing on top of them, rather than floating in the water,” he said.
A spokesman for Italy’s cetacean strandings emergency response team said plans were being hatched to encourage Mimmo to leave the lagoon.
“They may struggle to do that since they tried in June with an underwater sound deterrent which didn’t work,” said Bizzen.
“It’s not good for a wild animal to get used to humans and Mimmo is unfortunately now a tourist attraction. However, the mullet will leave at the end of November when the lagoon becomes colder than the sea, and maybe Mimmo will go too. We will be happier when he does,” he added.