In the shallow sea of Taiwan a dolphin was found stranded. Many people deemed saving a frail dolphin to be meaningless, yet 138 volunteers willingly sacrificed much time to look after it for over two months. They nicknamed the dolphin Uncle A-tong. Their success in saving the dolphin wrote a new chapter in Taiwan's history of dolphin conservation.

It was a windy day, sending waves towering high. The unfavorable condition added to the difficulty of saving a dolphin that weighed over two hundred kilograms. Three staff members from the park tried to put their arms around the dolphin and battled with the waves for over 30 minutes. The heavy dolphin almost crushed them. With the help from other fifteen burly men the dolphin was finally put on a stretcher and moved to the West Coast Marine Ecological & Educational Park. The worn-out teeth revealed the old age of the dolphin, so volunteers nicknamed it "Uncle A-Tong."

Dr. Yang Wei-cheng, the attending veterinarian of Uncle A-tong checked the dolphin and made the following conclusion: Uncle A-tong was a middle-aged male dolphin. Judging from its emaciated body, it probably hasn't had food for many days. Since there were no visible injuries on the body, it was probably too weak and too sick to fight against the waves and was washed ashore.

A temporary home

Uncle A-tong was three meters long, the largest dolphin the park had ever have. The temporary rehab pool measuring only six meters in diameter where it stayed in was way too confining and cramp. He could only shift slowly and slightly in the pool. It was feared that Uncle A-tong would be inflicted with muscular dystrophy if it was not moved to a bigger pool. Not only was the dolphin losing its appetite significantly, it was losing interest to move. Mold appeared on its body. Dr. Yang warned that if it had not moved to a bigger pool soon, its health would have deteriorated rapidly.

To save Uncle A-tong everyone looked hard for the bigger pool. Finally Lin Yu-jue a fish farm owner agreed to provide a brand new fish pool-twenty-five meters long and seven meters wide. The pool was cushioned with waterproof cloth. In order to move Uncle A-tong to it's comfortable new home, the Coast Guard Administration dispatched forty soldiers to help carry the dolphin onto the stretcher, and then loaded on a truck with a crane. Finally Uncle A-tong arrived at the fish farm that was two kilometers away from the park.

However, the pool was too large for the filtration system to operate properly. The seawater in the pool was saturated with algae and impurities, it badly affected Uncle A-tong's digestive system. Although the new home was not the most ideal, it was far better than letting Uncle A-tong stay in the rehab pool and died from muscular dystrophy. Now he could at least move around and chase squids freely.

Young men & the old dolphin

The new shelter was a blessing to the dolphin, but a grueling experience to the young volunteers. They had to deal with the impurities in the water, and regulate water temperature. In order to prevent Uncle A-tong from getting heat stroke, they built a sun-block net over the pool of sandbags and woods. Many got cut and other injuries while constructing it.

The days before the new filtration system arrived, Uncle A-tong had recurring diarrhea in the pool. Although the water was polluted, volunteers still entered the pool full of excrement to take care of Uncle A-tong. Many soon developed skin hives. The most arduous task was to insert the stomach tube in the dolphin. Volunteers must lift its heavy head off the water first, they then forced its tightly shut mouth open, pushed towels into its mouth, and inserted the tube into the esophagus. The thirty to sixty minute long process was not only time consuming, but also energy draining to both people and the dolphin.

Most of the long-term volunteers here were college students. They sacrificed their summer vacation, tolled for what others deemed to be an unworthy task of saving a frail dolphin. They often had to explain to others why saving dolphins and whales were important. Even after listening to them, some would retort, "The world has far more dolphins than whales, so why bother rescuing dolphins!"

Make friends

The volunteers once met a woman who asked rudely, "The dolphin is very old, why do you still want to save an old creature like him? Even if you were able to release him back to the sea, he would still die, or might even get stranded at the beach again."

The volunteers were speechless. The truth was that they too had a similar doubt going across their minds: "Is saving an old creature on the verge of dying is another form of torture to it." Nevertheless, Uncle A-tong had a very good appetite, proving that he had a strong desire to survive. To the volunteers, it was a sufficient reason to rescue A-tong.

"Actually we are saving ourselves when we save dolphins and whales. We must not see whales and other lives as a natural stock for us to use. Even if he will die, he must die in the sea, the place he belongs to, not in a confining rehabilitation pool that is so small that he would always bang his head against the wall. Dolphins and whales are not natural resources; they are our friends," said Tseng Hui-chien, a volunteer who had accompanied Uncle A-tong all the away from the beginning.

"We are saving ourselves when we save dolphins and whales" seems to hint the unlimited human craving will invite retribution from our Mother Nature. For the past 59 days these volunteers overturned the mainstream value in the human society and treated a dolphin with respect, on equal standing as a friend. They had carried out their belief quietly.

After receiving months of care, Uncle A-tong had grown strong enough to be released back to the sea. On September 2, a huge dolphin-releasing affair titled, "Accompanying Uncle A-tong Home" was held near a harbor in Miaoli. Waves of crowds, children, media and local residents all came to jam the once quiet harbor.

Most people, except Dr. Yang was joyful about sending the dolphin home. Dr. Yang was worried that accidents might happen on route to the harbor. For example what to do if the ropes carrying Uncle A-tong in air could not stand its weight and came loose. To prevent that from happening, he gave Uncle A-tong a shot of tranquilizer so Uncle A-tong would not swiftly writhe its body in shock.

The first saved dolphin

Why did the Educational Park decide to release the dolphin at that moment? Dr. Yang said, "Taiwan's rescue equipment at the moment can't provide further assistance to the dolphin. And it's not good for him if we keep him any longer. Also, the dolphin is too thin for his age so we suspect he might have tumors. However, we have no X-ray nor ultrasonic machine to treat such illness."

Uncle A-tong is the first dolphin that Taiwan saved successfully in the past ten years. Therefore, it had received much attention from all sectors. When Uncle A-tong was being transported to the harbor on September 2 on a truck, he was wrapped in towels, and Li Tsung-han, a volunteer who studied Chinese at the National Taiwan University, kept pouring water onto him. To combat the blazing heat volunteers also opened umbrellas to give shade to the dolphin. Volunteers' love for Uncle A-tong was never lessened even when facing the problem of inadequate equipment.

Taiwan Cetacean Society had several divers feed the dolphin for one last time, and guided the dolphin to swim to the sea. However, the dolphin didn't slowly swim out after circling around for 20 minutes. The crowds gradually lost the sight of him.

Li Tzung-han said with much emotion, "Uncle A-tong has finally gone home. We hope he could find his pals fast." When Uncle A-tong was circling around, Dr. Chou Lien-hsiang, director of the Taiwan Cetacean Society, suddenly became so nervous that he mumbled, "Oh, please, don't come back again!"

Yet against his wish, merely one day later Uncle A-tong did return. Dr. Yang couldn't understand why Uncle A-tong came back, he just knew that the dolphin did it intentionally. He gave an example of a piece of floating wood. When the wood floated in the sea, it was unlikely that it would come back to its original place. If dolphin can be compared to the wood, then Uncle A-tong's return to almost the exact spot where he was found stranded on July 6 was incredibly accurate. He must have done it intentionally. He didn't just float back there.

And what was his intention? For food? Or because he was being taken care of for too long that he couldn't readjust himself to the new life at sea? Or did he miss the volunteers? Only Uncle A-tong knew the answer.

Suffering

On the morning of September 8, Uncle A-tong was released again to the seas. This time it was set free three nautical miles north of Pitou Cape, Taipei County. The northern seas of Taiwan were, at that time, affected by circumfluence of a typhoon and the wind and wave had risen to level eight, the seas were so choppy that the boat's crew and reporters from various television stations and newspapers were all terribly seasick. The stormy waves rocked and swayed them out of their bearings and the sounds of vomiting could be heard constantly. Some people even fell into a coma and became unconscious. Uncle A-tong also threw up. The wave seemed to crush him, but he finally swam out.

Yang Wei-cheng, 25, who had just got his master's degree in Veterinary Medicine from the National Taiwan University, had originally become engaged in the rescue action in order to conduct pathological researches into dolphins. But after repeatedly participating in the operation, he had resolved to become a professional veterinarian for dolphins. He had always come in hope when a rescue operation was launched, but in the end he was often faced with disappointment. "Saving a dolphin is unlike saving a dog. Because the chance for a dolphin to survive is so slim that we must be prepared for frustration," said Yang.

In order to take care of Uncle A-tong, Yang lived by the pond. The irregular hours he kept made him look lethargic and volunteers were all used to his lisp and sleepy eyes. The constant fatigue caused him, an originally strong and robust young man, to fall ill time and again. It was mainly due to the efforts of this careful and imperturbable young man that Uncle A-tong could survive.

Taiwan is an island country and every year quite a lot of dolphins are stranded on its shores. The endeavor to save Uncle A-tong broke the dolphin-saving record in Asia. The success undoubtedly came as a great encouragement to Taiwanese people who have only three years' experience in saving dolphins.

In contrast to the twenty-odd years of dolphin-saving experiences in other countries, Taiwan is rather inexperienced in the field. People on the island did not consider it important to conduct dolphin-related researches until the spring of 1990 when the catching and killing of dolphins in Penghu caught their attention. The successful saving and releasing operation of Uncle A-tong has undoubtedly written a new page in Taiwan's dolphin conservation history.

Profile of the Risso's dolphins

The Risso's dolphin is a large dolphin with a robust, stocky body that becomes more slender behind the dorsal fin. The head is bulbous; Risso's dolphin has particularly larger melon, and there is no beak. A peculiar, deep V-shaped crease extends from the blowhole to the tip of the rostrum. The mouth slants upwards towards the eyes. The pectoral flippers are long, narrow and curved. The dorsal fin is tall, erect and falcate, and is set at the mid-point of the body. The tail flukes are dark and broad, with a distinct median notch, pointed tips and overall concave outline.

At birth, Risso's dolphins are a uniform light gray color. This darkens to a chocolate brown or black, and appears to lighten gradually as the animals age. Large animals are typically silver gray or cream-white, although the dorsal fin, flukes and distal half of the flippers generally remain darker. The body is covered with scratches and scars, which increase with age, resulting in a gradual lightening of the body color. Old, mature individuals may be almost entirely white. The scratches and marks are probably the result of intraspecific encounters, although some may be caused by sharp-beaked squid upon which Risso's dolphins prey.

Two to seven pairs of peg-like teeth are present in the lower jaw. One or two pairs of teeth may be found in the upper jaw.

Risso's dolphins reach a maximum length of four meters and a weight of 500 kg. There is some evidence that males are slightly longer than females.

Risso's dolphins are believed to have a life span of at least 20 years. They are probably preyed upon by killer whales and sharks.

Risso's dolphins have a world-wide distribution in tropical and temperate seas, but do not generally penetrate far into high latitudes.