MILAN — Venice has been charmed by a recent visitor: An acrobatic, wild dolphin. The feeling appears to be mutual — he so far refuses to leave — but proximity to humans has put him in danger.
The dolphin nicknamed Mimmo has been delighting tourists and Venetians for months with his acrobatic flips. Experts are now eager to move him into open water, especially after verifying wounds indicating that the dolphin had been likely hit by a boat propeller.
Multiple agencies used low-intensity acoustic devices to nudge Mimmo away from the heavily trafficked St. Mark's Basin on Saturday — and it worked briefly. But the dolphin came back within an hour, as experts feared he would.
''It's very worrying because it's a hot spot with lots of boat traffic,'' said Guido Pietroluongo, a veterinarian at the University of Padua's emergency response team for stranded dolphins, whales and porpoises, known by the acronym CERT.
St. Mark's Basin, the shallow expanse of water in front of St. Mark's Square connecting to both the Giudecca and Grand Canals, is heavily trafficked by ferries, vaporetti buses, water taxis, and private boats.
During the failed operation, experts confirmed Mimmo had suffered superficial lesions, likely from a boat propeller, Pietroluongo said. It was the first time they had noted injuries to the dolphin, and his wounds are expected to fully heal. But experts are worried about his continued safety in such proximity to human activity.
They don't plan any immediate action, and are hoping that colder seasonal temperatures will lure him, and his fish prey, out of the lagoon toward warmer waters, Pietroluongo said.
Mimmo's arrival in the Venetian lagoon was registered on July 23, and experts say the coastal creature likely followed a school of fish into the brackish waters separated from the open sea by barrier islands. He was nicknamed for the sailing instructor who first spotted him off the Venetian lagoon fishing town of Chioggia.
