Winter uses her flippers, normally employed for steering and braking, to get moving — amazing her handlers with a unique combination of moves that resemble an alligator’s undulating swimming style and a shark’s side-to-side tail swipes. But she can’t keep up with wild dolphins who can swim up to 25 mph with their tail flukes.
The solution for Winter may be a prosthetic tail. If the logistics can be worked out, Winter’s prosthesis would be the first for a dolphin who lost its tail and the key joint that allows it to move in powerful up and down strokes. Another dolphin in Japan has a prosthesis, the first in the world, to replace a missing part of its tail.
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