(CNN) – It was one of the videos that went viral during the first lockdown of 2020, encouraging everyone while they were at home: a dolphin swimming close to the surface in what would be a Venetian canal.
It was, of course, a fake – it turned out to have been shot near the port of Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia.
But on Monday, two dolphins really took a day trip to Venice.
They toured the famous Grand Canal before swimming to the island of Giudecca, where they saw no less than two churches by Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, before returning to the Adriatic.
Their visit came as the city is in another lockdown as Italy battles a third wave of Covid-19.
And although they were in danger during their stay in the city, the dolphins are believed to have escaped safely.
An hour later, they appeared at the mouth of the Grand Canal and swam up the iconic waterway to the famous Salute Church, where the Busetto team – now parked to get to work – clocked them again.
“But they were also in great danger because of all the boats going back and forth, which could have injured them with their propellers.” The group tried to stop traffic while waiting for the police.
The rescue mission
The CERT team is looking for the dolphins in the lagoon of Venice.
CERT
“The traffic was intense and we realized that the dolphins were completely disoriented and swimming in all directions, especially because they were scared,” Guido Pietroluongo of the group told CNN.
Dolphins usually orient themselves by sound, but here both sides of the canal had walls and boats were everywhere. Authorities said they had been trapped there for two hours and swam around and around. ‘
And so to the rescue. The CERT team – led by Professor Sandro Mazzariol – coordinated nine Venice authorities’ boats in a chain, trying to send the animals to the Lido, the long stretch of Venice, and a point where the Venetian lagoon meets the Adriatic Sea. It took two and a half hours.
“Time and again a ferry cut the chain so that the dolphins would get lost again,” says Pietroluongo.
Finally, diverted with other traffic, the ‘chain’ worked and the dolphins turned their backs on St. Mark’s Square, towards the Lido.
“We realized the animals were at the safest point and wanted to see what they would do,” says Pietroluongo.
‘We saw them three times and then completely lost them. They hadn’t gone back to the Grand Canal, so hopefully they went in the right direction. ‘
They are believed to have returned safely to the Adriatic.
The CERT team was ready to be called back on Tuesday, but there have been no observations.
“Hopefully they are now free in their environment,” he says.
A rare sighting
The couple are swimming around the back of the famous Salute Church.
CERT
Striped dolphins – as the CERT team thinks they are after reviewing the footage – are a rare sighting in the northern Adriatic. Deepwater mammals, they are mostly found in the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas and in the southern half of the Adriatic, says Pietroluongo. Additionally, they usually swim in pods of up to 100, not pairs, and stay well away from the shoreline. The last time one was seen in the Venice lagoon was four years ago; bottlenose dolphins are seen more often.
The group thinks this couple could have lost their way while foraging for food. “They could have followed prey in the middle of the Adriatic, pushed north and suddenly landed in Venice,” he says.
Or who knows – maybe they too wanted a chance to see the empty, closed city that was circulating on social media.
Pietroluongo calls the observation “joyful”. Meanwhile, Luca Folin, who made the video of the creatures in the Grand Canal, called it a ‘beautiful and rare moment … in a sad moment’.
“I uploaded it to social media without thinking it would go around the world,” he says.
“To be fair, I posted it to give a nice greeting to my fellow citizens in such a sad year – but having the video go viral is nice because it means I’ve made others smile.”