2011 Dolphin Health Assessment
Across 5 days, we caught, examined, and released 15 dolphins.
The team included veterinarians, researchers, and volunteers.
Goals included training foreign conservation workers and collecting medical samples.
The samples will be compared with samples to be collected from dolphins in Louisiana in August 2011, as part of a program to assess possible effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill on bottlenose dolphins.
In all, the samples and other data will be shared across a variety of research projects with collaborating agency scientists, veterinarians, and researchers from around the world.
This year we were joined by three members of the staff of the National Aquarium of Cuba. This is part of our effort to initiate standardized dolphin health assessments in Mexico, Cuba, and the US Gulf of Mexico waters under the Trinational Initiative.
The three Cubans joined a contingent of three workers from Brazil, six from Taiwan, and one from Argentina.
They were here to participate in training for dolphin capture-release and health assessment efforts in their own countries. The Cubans will work with bottlenose dolphins, the Brazilians and Argentinians with endangered Franciscana dolphins, and the Taiwanese with humpback dolphins.
The 2011 health assessments were made possible by funding from Dolphin Quest Inc.
