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In This Issue Our Approach Toward Helping Dolphins

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In This Issue Our Approach Toward Helping Dolphins In This Issue Our Approach Toward Helping Dolphins ........................ 4 Tools and Techniques .................................................... 33 Conservation Research and Action ................................ 5 Education, Outreach, and Training ............................... 38 Behavior, Social Structure, and Communication ......... 13 Products ......................................................................... 46 Health and Physiology ................................................... 16 Program Operations ...................................................... 48 Ecology, Population Structure and Dynamics ............. 21 Opportunities For You to Help ...................................... 50 Dolphin Rescues, Releases, and Follow-up Monitoring 29 2 Entering our 50th year of marine mammal research, conservation, and education As the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP) enters its 50th year, it seems reasonable to reflect on the legacy of conducting the world’s longest-running study of a wild dolphin population. What has developed over the decades is certainly beyond anything dolphin trainer Blair Irvine and his high school assistant could have imagined when we began tagging dolphins in Sarasota Bay in October 1970 to study their movements and activities. Blair and I are humbled by the fact that the program is now recognized by many around the world as a pioneering model. Because of the data rigorously collected over the decades, the resident Sarasota Bay dolphins are used as a reference population for comparative studies by, among others, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to investigate issues faced by at-risk dolphin populations. Data from the Sarasota Bay dolphins have played a crucial role in studies of the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and other pollution, as well as biotoxins, on bottlenose dolphin populations around the southeastern United States. Our highly skilled and experienced staff members are asked to participate in important research projects around the world. The unparalleled access afforded by the long- term resident Sarasota Bay dolphins has facilitated the development, testing, and/or refinement of many field research approaches and tools, including telemetry, veterinary techniques, and acoustic monitoring and communication studies. While population-level conservation research and capacity building needs guide many of our program’s activities (see the following page), we have also had a leadership role in appreciating the importance of acknowledging dolphins as individuals, tracking their lives over time, and sharing their individual stories. Without any need to anthropomorphize, the dolphins’ own stories can help members of the public better relate to the animals, care about them, and respond to their needs. Our discovery in the early 1970’s of long-term local residency by dolphins set the stage for being able to monitor individuals throughout their lives, to develop an understanding of their social structure, and to better understand the challenges they face day-to-day. We learned that dolphins in small, resident inshore communities are exposed every day to multiple, concurrent threats from both natural and man-made sources, and that cumulatively these can have great impact on the future of these individual communities. We continue to focus much attention on characterizing and attempting to mitigate these local threats, through research, outreach, education, and direct intervention. Direct intervention, through rescues, is not as desirable as prevention, but it can be necessary for entangled, injured, or out-of-habitat dolphins, and it can help to prevent population decline. Over the years we have engaged in 23 rescues of bottlenose dolphins along Florida’s west coast. Saving these individuals leverages their future generations. Three of the four mothers in the photo above likely would not have been alive to produce these calves without our intervention. Our research over the past 49 years, tracking identifiable individuals and their reproductive success through their lives, has shown that a single female can produce 11 calves or more during an up to 48-year-long reproductive lifespan. Helping dolphins to survive to produce these calves is crucial for these long-term dolphin communities to continue and to maintain their long-established, complex social structures. Each individual makes a difference for the community. Recently, dolphin communities along the west coast of Florida faced uncertain futures as a severe red tide harmful algal bloom raged from summer 2018 into winter 2019, depleting dolphin prey fish and killing dolphins with its toxins. So far, it appears that the prey fish are recovering more quickly than after some other severe red tides. On another positive note, the Sarasota Bay dolphins have produced 18 calves in 2019, including the first representative of a sixth generation in our study. Our team is looking forward to following their lives over the next half century, and using this knowledge to build the case for creating a better environment for the dolphins and their human neighbors. Along with the continuing gratification of helping these animals and their ecosystem, comes the pleasure of working with the ever- growing “Sarasota family” of staff, students, volunteers, alumni and collaborators who have made all of this possible. Thank you for caring about the dolphins of Sarasota Bay! Director, Sarasota Dolphin Research Program 3 Some of our accomplishments, by the numbers The “natural laboratory” situation of Sarasota Bay facilitates cutting-edge work done by a diverse group of specialists who complement the expertise and interests of the SDRP. Over the years, staff, students, and collaborators have produced more than 265 peer-reviewed publications, 4 books, more than 100 technical reports, and have made more than 660 presentations to scientific audiences, students, stakeholder groups, and the general public. Perhaps the most meaningful component of our legacy, though, involves training the next generation of conservation leaders. To date, 41 master’s and 43 doctoral students have benefited from SDRP data collection opportunities, data, samples, or guidance. In addition, more than 425 undergraduate interns have received multi-month training by the SDRP. Foreign participants in our training programs include 66 of the interns, along with 40 post-graduate scientists and 108 health assessment project participants, from 45 countries. A number of the alumni from our training programs have moved into key positions in wildlife management at NOAA and the Marine Mammal Commission, and elsewhere around the world. The accomplishments of the program over the decades reflect the efforts of many: staff, students, volunteers, collaborators, and the long-term support of several key individuals and organizations. Our approach toward helping dolphins Our desire with each research or conservation project in Florida or elsewhere is to contribute to a better understanding of the structure and dynamics of populations of small cetaceans (dolphins, whales, and porpoises), as well as the natural and anthropogenic factors (factors of human origin) that impact them. We use an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach in conducting studies of bottlenose dolphins within a unique long-term natural laboratory. The primary goals of our program include: (1) collecting biological, behavioral, ecological, and health data of importance to the conservation of small cetaceans, especially bottlenose dolphins, (2) providing requisite information for bottlenose dolphin conservation to wildlife management agencies, (3) disseminating the information generated by our program to scientific and general audiences in order to aid dolphin conservation efforts, (4) using our model program to develop and refine hypotheses regarding bottlenose dolphins in other parts of the species’ range as well as other species of small cetaceans, (5) using the established natural laboratory to develop and test new research tools and methodologies of potential benefit to conservation efforts, (6) training cetacean conservation workers and students from around the world in the use of these techniques, (7) applying our unique expertise to dolphin rescue operations and post-release follow-up monitoring, and (8) applying the information we gather from free-ranging dolphins to improve the quality of care for dolphins in zoological park settings. The collaborative work done toward achieving these goals is conducted under the umbrella of the “Sarasota Dolphin Research Program.” This name links the efforts of several organizations and individuals that work together to insure the continuity of the long-term dolphin research in Sarasota Bay. The SDRP has been operated by the Chicago Zoological Society (CZS) since 1989. Dolphin Biology Research Institute, a Sarasota-based 501{c}3 non-profit corporation established in 1982, provides logistical support with its fleet of small research vessels, vehicles, computers, cameras, field equipment, etc. Since 1992, the program has been based at Mote Marine Laboratory, with office, lab, storage and dock space within the resident Sarasota Bay dolphins’ home range. The SDRP maintains academic connections including providing graduate student opportunities primarily through the University of Florida, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Duke University. All of our dolphin research in the United States is conducted under NOAA Fisheries Service Scientific
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