Billie the wild dolphin shot to fame in the 1980s when she began swimming with racehorses in a South Australian River.
But it is her tail-walking prowess learnt from her captive cousins that lives on in one of the world’s only wild dolphin populations within a major city.
The female bottle-nosed dolphin would swim alongside the horses daily while they were being trained in the Port River in Adelaide, South Australia, earning her international fame. However, she went missing in 1988 and was eventually found trapped in a lock near Glenelg, one of South Australia’s most popular beaches.
Billie was taken to a marine park similar to a small Sea World, treated for her injuries and released back into the wild after living with the performing dolphins for just three weeks.
Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary manager Cristina Vicente said Billie made her way back to the Port River and a few months later was seen tail-walking, a stunt normally only performed in captivity by trained dolphins.
Vicente said Billie and her friend Wave taught about seven of the female Port River dolphins to tail-walk across three generations before Billie’s death in 2009. Some of the dolphins still show off the skill today.
“She learnt to tail-walk by watching the captive dolphins and then she taught the wild dolphins when she was released. There’s no wild population in the world that can do that at the rate that happens in the Port, it’s pretty amazing,” she said.
About 40 wild bottle-nosed dolphins live in a sanctuary in Adelaide’s Port River.
The safe haven was created in 2005 to protect the dolphins from pollution and violent attacks.
Vicente said the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, was created to improve water quality and habitat and protect the dolphins.
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