A dolphin that made a miraculous recovery from horrific sunburn injuries has been caught on camera swimming off the coast of Kerry.
The bottlenose dolphin from Scotland named Spirtle was not expected to survive after being rescued out of water in May of 2016.
Rescuers refloated the female dolphin but did not think she would survive after being stranded for 24 hours, ever since they have been monitoring her recovery.
Spirtle was filmed by Joanne O'Brien last week on July 13 swimming near the Tralee coast and Brandon bay in North Kerry.
The dolphin appears to be thriving in the video and was accompanied by a group of around 20 other bottlenose dolphins.
Researcher Dr Barbara Cheney from the University of Aberdeen has said that: “This is the bottlenose dolphin known as “Spirtle”, born in 2012 to a well-known mum here in the Moray Firth, NE Scotland.
"She was found live stranded on the 29th May 2016 late afternoon/evening and refloated on the morning of 30th May.
"We saw her with her mum before that on the 23rd May 2016 and then saw her next on the 14th July 2016 with the wound on her right side. Since then we’ve seen her pretty regularly each summer, the wound gradually healing.
"We last saw her on the 18th September 2018. However, I believe she was seen by a member of the public in the Moray Firth at the start of this year.”
The Irish whale and dolphin group will now begin to download images and start comparing some well marked fins with a number of photo-id catalogues so they can identify the dolphins that are travelling along the Irish coast.
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