Thursday, June 10, 2010

Dolphin's Artificial Tail Fin

A tyre manufacturing company has come to the rescue of Fuji the dolphin who was stricken by a mysterious life threatening illness and lost her fin. She caught a disease that begun gradually rotting her tail and it had to be amputated to save her life.



For a while the now 37-year old Fuji survived without a fin, but her lack of exercise and weight gain proved problematic.
A friend of the handler's working at one of Japan's leading tyre makers, Bridgestone Corp, offered to make them an artificial tail fin for Fuji, the first of its kind in the world. The result was a tail fin 30 centimetres in length and 70 centimetres wide, a bit smaller than the tail of a healthy dolphin of Fuji's size.