Welcome to Nicks 'n' Notches Online, the enewsletter of the
Sarasota Dolphin Research Program.
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RESEARCH, CONSERVATION
AND EDUCATION SINCE 1970.
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The Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP) is a collaboration dedicated to dolphin research, conservation and education.
It began in 1970 at Mote Marine Laboratory when Blair Irvine and high school student Randy Wells began a tagging study to find out if dolphins on Florida's central west coast from southern Tampa Bay to Charlotte Harbor remained in the area or traveled more widely.
Our discovery of long-term residency set the stage for our future efforts by demonstrating opportunities to study individually identifiable dolphins throughout their lives.
Our dolphin research, conservation and education work is conducted under the umbrella name "Sarasota Dolphin Research Program." This name links the efforts of several organizations and individuals that work together to ensure the continuity of our long-term dolphin efforts in Sarasota Bay and elsewhere.
The SDRP has been operated by the Chicago Zoological Society (CZS) since 1989.
"Dolphin Biology Research Institute," is a Sarasota-based 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation established in 1982. It provides logistical support with research vessels, towing vehicles, computers, cameras, field equipment, etc.
Since 1992, the program has been based at Mote Marine Laboratory on City Island in Sarasota Bay, with office, lab, storage and dock space and easy access to boat launching ramps within the home range of the Sarasota Bay resident dolphins.
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We recently invited our Facebook fans to send us their dolphin questions via private message (PM) & have been answering them publicly in some of our posts. Do you have questions about dolphins or our dolphin research? If so, please visit our Facebook page
and send us a private message and we'll try to include answers in future posts. (Note: Please don't send questions via email -- our inbox is already stuffed to the gills!)
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Notes from the Field and Lab...
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Randall Wells, Ph.D., Director
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Several times a year, the SDRP staff gets called away from our regular duties to help with dolphins in distress.  Often, the distressing incident is entanglement in some kind of fishing gear or trash.
Our most recent rescue involved a dolphin entangled in a crab trap float line and took place on March 1.
A boater found the dolphin late in the day on Feb. 29 just north of Venice Inlet, about a half of a mile offshore. She reported the coordinates of the entangled animal to authorities but it was getting dark and so it wasn't possible to respond that evening. Mote Marine Laboratory shared the coordinates with us and the next morning we diverted our survey team to the south to check on whether the animal was still entangled.
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Bill, the entangled 10-yr-old male dolphin, is shown here just before SDRP staff removed the gear.
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We found the animal -- the 10-year-old brother of previously entangled dolphin Nellie -- with the crab trap line still tangled around his tail. Bill, as he's known to our survey crew, was not able to move, though he could lift his head out of the water to breathe. We were able to successfully disentangle the dolphin before the line caused major injury or a shark attacked him, and he swam away. This occurred, strangely enough, on the 6th anniversary of our disentanglement of sister Nellie.
All too often, these stories do not have such happy endings. The boater's report with GPS coordinates of the dolphin's location was crucial information needed for us to find the animal, given the fact that it was trapped low in the water and was not easily spotted.
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SDRP remove the crab trap float line from Bill.
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We hope all boaters will keep their eyes open on the water and report any sick, injured or entangled dolphins. Boaters can also help keep many entanglements from happening in the first place by making sure they securely stow all trash and discarded fishing line and gear on their boats until they can throw it away in a closed container on shore. If you do spot marine trash, please stop to pick it up!
We often get asked what boaters should do if they see an animal in distress. In Florida, please call the FWC Wildlife Alert hotline at 888-404-FWCC (3922). For marine mammals or sea turtles in Sarasota or Manatee County waters, you can also call the Mote Stranding Investigations Program hotline at 941-988-0212 (leave a message and you'll get a prompt call back).
Another handy way to report stranded marine mammals is to have the Dolphin & Whale 911 app on your smartphone. The app, created by the NOAA Fisheries Southeast  Regional Office, connects you to the local Marine Mammal Stranding Network operating in your area so that you can make a report. (Currently, the app only works in the Southeastern U.S. but is expected to expand to other areas.)
The free app is available at iTunes & Google Play. Learn more.
In the office, we've been busy submitting new research proposals to various funding organizations and agencies and working on publications for peer-review journals in order to share the information we learn with colleagues from around the world. We received news of two papers that have been published:
Fleishman, E., D. P. Costa, J. Harwood, S. Kraus, D. Moretti, L. F. New, R. S. Schick, L. K. Schwarz, S. E. Simmons, L. Thomas and R. S. Wells. 2016 (Early view).
Monitoring population-level responses of marine mammals to human activities.
Marine Mammal Science. DOI: 10.1111/mms.12310
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Name: FB25
Age: 38
Sex: Female
A Dolphin's Life:
Boaters may recognize FB25 because of her very distinctive dorsal fin with its series of notches toward its tip. She frequents the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) east of Siesta and Casey Keys.
This dolphin has been observed by our survey team more than 840 times since June 1984. Our most recent sighting was on March 7 of this year.
Over the years, we've seen her with nine calves; the first was a female born in 1988 that was observed until 1990 and the most recent was born in 2014 and was only observed once before it died. After that calf's death, FB25's eighth calf -- born in 2011, known as C258 and believed to be a male -- returned to her side and continues to spend time with her. He acts like a calf most of the time.
FB25 is the mother of Bill, the dolphin we rescued from the crab trap entanglement earlier this month. She's also mom to Nellie (her seventh calf). Nellie was just 9 months old i
n 2010 when she was spotted with line encircling her neck. Fortunately, we were able to free her of the entanglement and she's alive and well today.
FB25's second calf, a female, was born in 1993 and was observed until 2002. This calf was FB25's only female calf to be observed into its reproductive years. Now that Nellie is 7 and entering her own reproductive years, she may begin to provide FB25 with grand-calves.
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FB25 is shown here with her eighth calf, known as C258.
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Dolphin Biology Research Institute (DBA Sarasota Dolphin Research Program)
is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to research and conservation of dolphins and their habitat. Employer Identification No. 59-2288387; Florida Charitable Contributions Solicitations Registration No. CH1172. A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL FLORIDA REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL-FREE (800-435-7352) WITHIN THE STATE OR AT WWW.FRESHFROMFLORIDA.COM. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE. THIS ORGANIZATION RETAINS 100% OF ALL CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED.
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