Game With Whales Leaves a Dolphin With Fractured Jaw

Whitewing, a dolphin, had a touch too much fun with the three killer whales she shares a pool with and now is nursing a fractured jaw after a sideswipe from a mammoth tail.

Biologist Gil Hewlett of the Vancouver Public Aquarium said Thursday that the female dolphin’s injury was a result of “a little rough-housing as they were tearing around the pool, we think, like a couple of kids playing a bit too hard.”

Hewlett said that if the fracture doesn’t heal on its own, veterinarians will administer a local anesthetic and perform surgery while the dolphin, an air-breathing mammal, is out of water.