January 2012 The overarching goal of this collaborative project is to develop indicators and methods to quantify chronic stress in bottlenose dolphins. Much research has focused on the stimuli which induce stress in marine mammals as well as the hormonal mediators of the stress response. Stress may be induced by a variety factors, including noise, [...]

In contrast to the decades of information available from bottlenose dolphins inhabiting some of southwest Florida’s bays, sounds, and estuaries, little is known about the health, stock structure, ranging patterns, and dive behavior of bottlenose dolphins in West Florida Shelf waters, 10-30 miles offshore. Information is needed to define population units for management purposes; data [...]

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill and several Unusual Mortality Events (UMEs) in the Gulf of Mexico have shown that knowledge of bottlenose dolphins in much of the Gulf is insufficient to meet the mandates of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. In much of the Gulf, stock boundaries have been assigned arbitrarily based on geography [...]

January, 2012 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 [...]

In April of 2011 the SDRP community was saddened by the passing of its dear friend Bill Scott following his long fight with cancer. Bill had been a valued and beloved colleague since he first came to work with us as an Earthwatch volunteer back in the fall of 1990. Over the next 21 years [...]

Mirroring the stability of the Sarasota Bay resident dolphin community, most of the staff members of the SDRP have been with the program for at least 8 years. We did see a few changes this year. Operations Specialist Gene Stover retired after many years of dedicated and much-appreciated service as a volunteer and part-time CZS [...]

The 2006 SDRP “Manual for Field Research and Laboratory Activities,”  is available as a downloadable pdf file. This 62-page document provides detailed documentation of our protocols used for field operations and data processing. It includes chapters on: 1) Field survey protocols, 2) Post-survey lab protocols, 3) Photo-identification protocols, 4) Database entry, verification, and management, and [...]

SDRP staff lent their expertise as part of a multi-agency team that conducted a health assessment of bottlenose dolphins in Barataria Bay, Louisiana during August 3-16, 2011. The health assessment was one of several efforts being conducted as part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) for the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) Oil Spill. Barataria Bay [...]