Dolphins increasingly rely on trawlers for food in overfished Adriatic, say scientists

Bottlenose dolphins in the Adriatic have fundamentally changed their feeding behavior. A new study shows they're increasingly following fishing trawlers to scavenge for discarded fish. In one surveyed area, seventy-six percent of fishing boats had dolphins following in their wake. More significantly, this behavior is being passed from parents to offspring—young dolphins are learning to exploit the trawlers as a food source. Researcher Giovanni Bearzi says that dolphins now congregate around fishing vessels so reliably that he can locate populations simply by looking for trawlers.

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