First published June 6, 2019.
A rare pink dolphin mom had given birth to a cute baby dolphin. People call her Pinky. The animal has been spotted in the Calcasieu River in Louisiana. Her pink calf was there as well.
The pink mammal became popular twelve years ago, according to Healthyfoodhouse.com. Captain Erik Rue was the first to spot her. The footage of Pinky and her baby was posted on Pinky’s Facebook. The dolphins were swimming in front of a big boat in the Calcasieu Ship Channel.
Reports at the time described Pinky as a rare river dolphin, but she is a bottlenose dolphin whose pink color most likely comes from a rare genetic condition, albinism. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed some true river dolphins as endangered, but those are different species from Pinky.
The birth of the calf gives people hope that calves have inherited their mom’s genetic mutation, that would help in the effort of increasing the population of rare species.
Captain Rue said that the dolphin is pink from its tail to the tip, and has red eyes. Its skin is smooth and glossy.
Local accounts said Pinky did not seem affected by the environment or sunlight but liked to remain below the surface more than other animals, although albinism can bring health problems.
She is an incredible mammal that brings joy to locals, and guests love seeing such a beautiful mammal.
A colour description is not a species name
The Louisiana dolphin known as Pinky is a bottlenose dolphin with unusual pigmentation, not an Amazon river dolphin, and the river-dolphin conservation category does not apply to her. A sighting in a river or channel does not make a bottlenose dolphin a member of a separate river-dolphin species.
A calf report needs its own evidence
The video and accompanying accounts should be assessed separately from claims about inheritance or population recovery. Geneticist Greg Barsh told National Geographic that Pinky’s reddish eyes and visible blood vessels are telltale signs of albinism, a recessive trait: a calf would be pink only if both parents passed on the same mutation, and a calf from a carrier father would have a roughly fifty-fifty chance. Captain Erik Rue of Calcasieu Charter Service first spotted her in 2007. Pinky’s distinctive appearance can inspire interest while the animals are given space and their identity is described accurately. The story does not need to promise the rescue of an unrelated endangered species to remain remarkable. A pink-looking animal in a short clip does not establish a genetic result.
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