By Michael Moore, Vet MB, PhD, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution As an air breathing mammal dives, the air in its lungs is compressed and the amount of gas in blood and tissues increases. As the diver begins to return to the surface, the amount of gas decreases again with the reducing pressure, with a risk [...]

By Stephanie Venn-Watson, DVM, MPH, Director of Clinical Research, National Marine Mammal Foundation Many animals can get kidney stones, including bottlenose dolphins and humans. Most kidney stones that have been found in dolphins are made of ammonium acid urate (AAU). AAU stones are very rare in humans in the United States but are common in [...]

By James Wellehan, DVM, MS, DACZM, DACVM, University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine The viral diseases of marine mammals are not yet well understood, but samples from Sarasota Bay bottlenose dolphins are helping us to learn more. Astroviruses are a leading cause of diarrhea in children. The Marine Animal Disease Laboratory at the University [...]

By Mandy Cook, PhD, Portland State University, and David Mann, PhD, University of South Florida Bottlenose dolphins can hear from about 75 Hertz (Hz) to over 150,000 Hz, well beyond the range of human hearing (20-20,000 Hz). Because they are exposed to a wide variety of both naturally-occurring and anthropogenic noise in their environment, there [...]

Lacaziosis (Lacazia loboi) is a chronic, fungal skin disease that naturally occurs only in humans and dolphins, and was first discovered in a dolphin from Sarasota Bay in 1970 that was recovered and necropsied by Blair Irvine and Randy Wells. Recent analyses of longitudinal photographs of diseased dolphins have revealed that lacaziosis is slowly progressive [...]

By Randall S. Wells, PhD Health assessments of Sarasota Bay dolphins were elevated by circumstances to a higher level of urgency this year with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In advance of the possible arrival of oil from the spill, we wanted to collect baseline health information and tissue samples for measurement of contaminant concentrations, [...]

By Brian Balmer, MS, PhD Student, Chicago Zoological Society and University of North Carolina Wilmington Bottlenose dolphins are apex predators in coastal southeastern U.S. waters, and as such can be sensitive indicators of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in coastal ecosystems. The concentrations of POPs and patterns of specific compounds measured in a dolphin’s blubber are [...]

By Amanda Moors, BS, Jennifer Yordy PhD, and John Kucklick, PhD For 10 years, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with partial support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Chicago Zoological Society, has partnered with the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP) to collect, analyze, and bank samples from bottlenose [...]