By Elizabeth Berens McCabe, MS, Chicago Zoological Society Natural disturbances such as harmful algal blooms can greatly affect the community dynamics of estuaries and nearshore environments.  In Florida, red tides are a type of harmful algal bloom caused by the dinoflagellate Karenia brevis.  This naturally occurring alga produces brevetoxins (PbTx), lethal neurotoxins which affect the [...]

By Kristina Cammen, PhD student, Duke University Red tides of the toxic algal species Karenia brevis occur regularly in western Florida and can pose a great threat to coastal bottlenose dolphins. In the past two decades, four large-scale mortality events of bottlenose dolphins have been associated with red tides. Interestingly, dolphin populations appear to vary [...]

My contribution to dolphin conservation comes not from observing bottlenose dolphins directly in the warm Sarasota sun but rather by exploiting new mass spectrometric techniques that allow me to uncover various attributes of foraging habits by measuring tiny amounts of animal tissue. These techniques involve analysis of the stable isotopes of carbon. Different types of [...]

By Jason Allen, BS, Chicago Zoological Society We have been able to continue our year-round monthly monitoring of the Sarasota dolphin community thanks largely to support from the Batchelor Foundation and the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund.  The Sarasota bottlenose dolphin community is perhaps the most thoroughly studied free-ranging dolphin population in the world. We continue [...]

By Graham A.J. Worthy, PhD (UCF), Steve Shippee (UCF), Randall S. Wells, PhD (CZS/Mote Marine Laboratory), Martin Shannon (FFWRI), and Peggy Ostrom, PhD (MSU) We have assembled a collaborative team of researchers from the University of Central Florida, the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute to study the potential [...]

By Brian Balmer, MS, PhD Student, Chicago Zoological Society and University of North Carolina Wilmington In response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we were contracted to perform a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) on the St. Joseph Bay bottlenose dolphin community. The overall goals of the NRDA process, which is part of NOAA’s Damage [...]

We had 1,065 group sightings that totaled 3,135 dolphins (including resighted animals).

In the past decade, four Unusual Mortality Events (UMEs) of bottlenose dolphins have been attributed to Karenia brevis, the red tide algal species that produces neurotoxic brevetoxins.