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 started a pilot tagging study to find out whether dolphins on Florida's central west coast remained in the area or traveled more widely. In 1974, with a contract from the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, they were joined by Michael Scott and expanded the study with radio-telemetry.
Their subsequent discovery of long-term residency set the stage for today's efforts by demonstrating opportunities to study individually identifiable dolphins throughout their lives in a natural laboratory setting.
Our work is conducted under the name "Sarasota Dolphin Research Program." This name ties together several organizations dedicated to ensuring the continuity of our long-term research, conservation and education 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 came through Hurricane Irma in very good shape. While some staff members had downed trees, minor damage to their homes and some remained without power for several days, all of our staff and their families were fine and our facilities and boats are fully operational.
Thanks to the excellent preparations by staff and extraordinary efforts to return quickly to normal operations, we were in a position to send a dolphin photographic identification survey team out on the water on Sept. 13 -- just three days after the storm made landfall. If the worst we can say is that we lost a week's worth of field efforts due to preparations, storm passage and recovery, then we are indeed very fortunate -- it was projected to have been so much worse.
Our thoughts are with those elsewhere -- especially the lower Florida Keys -- who are dealing with much worse impacts from Irma. Those in Texas suffering from the effects of Hurricane Harvey and those who were devastated by Hurricane Maria are also in our thoughts. We hope for them all a speedy recovery.
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Update: Saving the Vaquita
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Planning continues for operations to relocate some of the estimated fewer than 30 remaining vaquita porpoises to a sanctuary in the upper Gulf of California. The vaquita -- the most endangered cetacean in the world -- are the focus of an international rescue effort with the goal of bringing the species back from the brink of extinction.
SDRP Director, Dr. Randy Wells, is serving as the AZA SAFE Vaquita Rescue Project Coordinator, collaborating with VaquitaCPR. The AZA's SAFE program (Saving Animals From Extinction®) is designed to aggregate and coordinate member resources and expertise to help save endangered species like the vaquita. Dr. Wells is also serving as capture coordinator on the project's management team.
Efforts to capture vaquita for relocation away from the gillnets that have caused their precipitous decline are expected to take place in October and early November with shore-based holding facilities nearing completion and sea pens under construction.
We'd like to draw your attention to an article published earlier this month in Hakai magazine.
Avoiding Extinction, by Sarah Gilman, covers the plight of the vaquita and the issues surrounding the efforts under way to try to save this species. If you'd like to learn more about the plans to relocate the species or make a donation to support the cause, please visit
vaquitacpr.org.
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Notes from the Field and Lab...
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Randall Wells, Ph.D., Director
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The local dolphin community has had a record year for babies -- with 19 calves documented. Since the initiation of our research in October 1970, SDRP has documented births by female dolphins ranging in age from 6 to 48 years, including calves birthed by the oldest-known bottlenose dolphin, Nicklo, who is now 67.
One of this year's calves is the first-born of a dolphin named Nellie, a female we disentangled from plastic line that was embedded around her body in 2010. At the time of the rescue, she was just a few months old herself. Neither Nellie nor her new calf would exist were it not for our rescue efforts -- a fact that points to the positive impact that our program has on our local dolphin community.
Generally speaking, successful calving years are good news for
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Calving season in Sarasota Bay peaks during late spring and summer. Mothers are typically pregnant for 12.5 months. Labor usually lasts 45 minutes to a few hours. Newborns range between 42 to 52 inches long, weigh between 30 to 45 pounds and are typically born tail first. During the first few months, calves are usually darker than adults and feature creases on their sides called "fetal folds." The creases -- highlighted in this 2015 photo -- are due to folding in the uterus and usually disappear within six months. It is also common for a calf's dorsal fin and tail flukes to be pliable during the first few days after birth. Two mothers that the SDRP has followed have given birth to 10 calves to date. Through paternity testing, we have found resident males that have sired up to seven calves within the community.
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the health of our local ecosystem. Bottlenose dolphins are sentinels of the health of the coastal ecosystem in Sarasota. They breathe the same air, swim in the same waters and eat the same fish we do. Because of our consistent long-term research, our local bottlenose dolphins also serve as a reference population for NOAA and other research partners worldwide.
The Chicago Zoological Society recently received a $1 million, five-year grant from the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation to support the continuation of our long-term dataset to help detect and monitor threats to ecosystem health and provide benchmarks for at-risk dolphin populations elsewhere.
For example, of the pregnancies we have detected during dolphin health assessments in Sarasota Bay, 83 percent of them have led to births we have been able to document during later visual surveys when we have seen the mothers swimming alongside new calves.
This stands in sharp contrast to the 20- percent success documented during comparable research in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, which experienced heavy oiling from the Deepwater Horizon spill. The low percentage of success points to the death of prenatal and dolphin calves as one of the major impacts of the spill.
Although having a record number of births is good news, it's important for us to remember that naïve newborn dolphins lack the skills and experience to avoid boats and have to surface more frequently to breathe than older dolphins. Mothers can also be more distracted with newborns and not always able to get out of the way of approaching boats. Dolphins along the central west coast of Florida frequent shallow waters where they may be unable to dive below approaching boats.
So don't forget to be on the lookout for moms and calves while you're enjoying our waterways! This video will help you learn more about safe boating around dolphins.
Here's wishing you fair winds -- not of the hurricane variety -- and following seas!
Randy Wells
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Name:
Joy, aka F267 
Age:
2
Sex: Female
A Dolphin's Life:
Joy has been observed more than 70 times since her birth in July 2015. She is the second calf of Holly and the grandcalf of Big Shout, who we have been observing since 1992. The dolphins from this lineage tend to use the northern parts of Sarasota Bay (Palma Sola Bay and Anna Maria Sound) as well as the Manatee River and Terra Ceia Bay. When Joy was only about 11 months old, she narrowly escaped a shark encounter which left a distinctive slice and hole near the top of her fin that will help us continue to identify her after she leaves her mother.
Joy surfaces next to her mother
when she was just days old in 2015.
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This picture shows Joy and her mother,
Holly, in May of this year.
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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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STAY CONNECTED
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