The Billionaire Dolphin Club!

Its desperate sad news, the Fungie situation rumbles on and nobody knows where and what has happened to him. You cant really put into words what that dolphin means to Dingle town and the peninsula as a whole. Some may argue that Dingle just wouldn't be the town it is today without the dolphin and some may say that the town still has enough to have made it as the most desirable seaside town in Ireland, if not Europe. In my opinion, Dingle wouldn't be the star it is today without Fungie and it wont be the same without him. 

Chris Snow, Fungie, Dingle Harbour

Over the last few weeks with Fungies disappearance and the worldwide attention the dolphin has got, a lot of comments that I have seen is that fungie can be replaced. This is a comment which undermines both the significance of the dolphin and the special story that is fungie. The reality is fungie will never be replaced. He was quite literally one of a kind, a natural phenomenon, what has happened with fungie can never happen again. Its very rare that a bottle nose dolphin will call a harbour a home and become friends with the locals like fungie did. It does happen but the popularity that fungie received and the attention he gave back was and will never be again, unless he returns of course. 

Now what do i think happened? This is a very difficult question to answer and if the truth be told, l do not know. What I can say is that 2020 was a bad year, for both humanity and for fungie. He was constantly given attention throughout his 37 years in the harbour and 2020 was the first year that maybe this decreased a bit due to restrictions etc... Now also what has to be said is there was a lot of activity in around the harbour from both other dolphins and whales and just maybe his attention turned to them. More so than anything else I personally believed his time was just up, he was estimated to be 40 - 50 years old. He was old and maybe age caught up with him. The story is a magnificent one and to add to its magnificence just maybe we are not meant to know what has happened to the Dingle dolphin. His story will live on tho in the minds and hearts of all that has visited him. God be with the billionaire dolphin.

Next week find out how fungie became a billionaire....