Nicks 'n' Notches Online
A monthly enewsletter from the
Sarasota Dolphin Research Program
January-February 2023
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Do you hear what dolphins hear? |
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During the pandemic, many places around the world reported that wildlife was flourishing with an absence or reduction in human activity. But in Sarasota Bay, we actually saw an increase in boat traffic on our local waterways.
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Notes from the Field and Lab |
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We are expecting 2023 to be every bit as busy for our team as 2022, as we continue working through the backlog of COVID-delayed projects and engage in new endeavors.
Locally, we will be continuing our basic monitoring of the Sarasota Bay dolphins through monthly photographic identification surveys and seasonal fish surveys, sponsored by the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation. We will also maintain and expand our Sarasota Bay Listening Network of stations arrayed around the shoreline of Sarasota Bay and vicinity to monitor the underwater soundscape, and potentially to begin to remotely track dolphins from their signature whistles.
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We’re excited to continue our Florida RESTORE Act Centers of Excellence program-funded research on offshore dolphins over the West Florida Shelf. Health assessments and tracking of deeper-water dolphins with satellite-linked tags and digital archival tags will provide new insights into these little-studied animals, building on our pioneering work in 2022. In related research, we are continuing NOAA RESTORE Act-funded research to develop a remote tagging tool, nicknamed the TADpole, in conjunction with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the National Marine Mammal Foundation (NMMF). |
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"Sam" is a rough-toothed dolphin
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Further afield, we will send a team to Barataria Bay, Louisiana, this summer to engage in health assessments and behavioral observations. This work, part of a large collaborative project that includes colleagues at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and NMMF is focused on how dolphins respond to multiple stressors.
Internationally, we’re participating in work in Cambodia, Greece and Argentina this year.
Lab Manager Jason Allen just returned from a Marine Mammal Commission-sponsored trip to Cambodia to work with local researchers and an international team of experts on the critically endangered Mekong River dolphin. Fewer than 100 individuals remain. CZS-SDRP has advised and assisted the World Wildlife Fund-Cambodia (WWF) research team for more than a decade. We hosted four of their key staff for field and lab training in Sarasota in 2019, and have continued to work with them to modify and translate the highly-functional database, called "FinBase," for use with their survey data.
Jason assisted the local WWF team on a six-day dolphin survey of the river and subsequent data and photographic analysis. This first-hand experience will allow Jason to provide more detailed and situationally relevant assistance to their team as we continue to help them try to save this critically endangered species.
In June, we will send a team to the Gulf of Ambracia in western Greece to work with the Tethys Research Institute’s Ionian Dolphin Project on a critically endangered population of bottlenose dolphins and in October, we will convene a team of collaborators in Argentina to continue our work with Fundación AquaMarina on coastal franciscana dolphins, characterized by the IUCN as vulnerable.
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To facilitate accomplishing all of this work, the Chicago Zoological Society has supported the addition of new team members!
Temporary employee (and former SDRP intern and Master’s student) Kylee DiMaggio has transitioned to a role as a full-time research assistant. We’re also pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Katy Holmes as our Sarasota Bay Listening Network manager. Katy is a former SDRP intern who recently completed her Ph.D. studying dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia, and she will be responsible for coordinating activities for our growing passive acoustic monitoring program.
Katy has been working with Senior Scientist and Deputy Program Manager Dr. Katie McHugh and contractor Cecilia Thompson to bring several stations that had sustained damage during Hurricane Ian last fall back online.
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And, of course, we continue educating the next generation of dolphin researchers through internships supported by the Mote Scientific and Barancik Foundations, and we continue to work with a number of graduate students, providing them with research opportunities, and/or access to samples, data, or guidance. We are already off to a busy start with outreach efforts that allow us to share information with stakeholders about the needs of the dolphins that share our coastal ecosystem.
We look forward to sharing more news throughout the year through our enewsletter and our social media channels. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for more.
Here's to a year of fair winds and following seas!
Randy Wells
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Following our return from Cambodia, we thought we'd introduce you to a new species this month: Mekong River dolphins, also known as Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris).
With large melons, blunt, rounded heads and no real beak, Irrawaddy dolphins bear more resemblance to beluga whales than bottlenose dolphins. They have 48 to 76 total teeth (by comparison, bottlenose dolphins have 72-104). They’re also smaller than bottlenose dolphins, weighing in at 200 to 400 pounds. They are observed on occasion spitting water, apparently as a means of helping to catch fish.
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They live in small subpopulations near sea coasts, estuaries and rivers in parts of the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia. They occur from Borneo and the central islands of the Indonesian Archipelago north to Palawan, Philippines, and west to the Bay of Bengal, including the Gulf of Thailand. |
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Riverine subpopulations currently can be found in the Ayeyarwady River in Myanmar, Mahakam in Indonesia, Lao PDR and the Mekong River in Cambodia, where we're working as part of a project to save them.
These blunt-nosed cousins of bottlenose dolphins are critically endangered, facing threats from gill nets, longlines, electrofishing, upstream dams and overfishing. It's estimated that there are about 89 Irrawaddy dolphins left. Recent losses following a period of stabilization since the creation of river patrols have spurred more recent attention to this issue.
In January, SDRP Lab Manager Jason Allen captured this image of a pair socializing in the Mekong River.
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Celebrating More than 50 Years of Research, Conservation and Education
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For more information on how you can help support wild dolphin research, please contact Randy Wells, Director of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, at RWells@mote.org or 941.374.0449.
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Dolphin Biology Research Institute — DBA Sarasota Dolphin Research Program — is dedicated to research and conservation of dolphins and their habitat. Community Foundation of Sarasota County Giving Partner Profile available here.
DBRI IS A 501(C)3 ORGANIZATION — FEDERAL TAX ID #59-2288387. A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION (#CH1172) AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL-FREE 1-800-435-7352 WITHIN THE STATE OR AT WWW.FDACS.GOV/CONSUMER-RESOURCES/CHARITIES. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE.
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