We have been investigating the impacts of red tide on Sarasota Bay dolphins, sea turtles and sea birds over the last several years. Although the Sarasota Bay area did not experience a red tide bloom during 2007 we are still investigating the impacts of the severe red tide blooms in 2005 and 2006 on these [...]

There was no significant relationship between calf survivorship and milk composition. However, calf mass increased significantly with the percentage of milk fat and varied inversely with milk water and potassium content.

Since 1999 we have been developing and testing new ways to study the thermal behavior of wild bottlenose dolphins. Over the course of this six-year project we were able to collect detailed data records from a large number of dolphins in the Sarasota community. Recently, we published the first in a series of papers that [...]

Following the large-scale mortality of bottlenose dolphins along the U.S. Atlantic seaboard in 1987-1988, and the occurrence of even larger mortality events in European waters involving seals and dolphins, NOAA’s Fisheries Service (NMFS), with involvement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, established the Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events (WG) in the [...]

Bottlenose dolphins are long-lived, fish-eating marine mammals that are at or near the top of the food web in coastal ecosystems. As a result, they are vulnerable to accumulating heavy burdens of persistent organohalogen contaminants (POCs). POCs are man-made compounds that are used in industry, agricultural and domestic settings as electrical insulating fluids, flame retardants [...]

Blood and epidermal (outer layer of skin) samples from free-ranging bottlenose dolphins captured and released during health assessments in Sarasota Bay were evaluated for concentrations of mercury (Hg), selenium (Se), stable isotopes of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) to address diet patterns of the dolphins, and blood glutathione peroxidase activity (antioxidant enzyme dependent on selenium) [...]