Again in 2011, for a second year, the story continues to be calves, calves and more calves. We have followed up last summer’s 17 new babies with a very respectable eight newborns in 2011. It has been a decade since so many calves have been born into the population over only two years. 2011 moms [...]

Predation constitutes a suite of behavioral, individual, and population effects and plays a critical role in population regulation. One important effect is the influence that predatory pressures exact upon the abundance and distribution of prey species. Conversely, individual predators such as bottlenose dolphins can be affected by changes in prey density by consuming more of [...]

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 In Sarasota Bay, the occurrence of a severe red tide in 2005 was followed by increases in dolphin depredation behaviors, declines in body condition, decreased abundance (through temporary and permanent movements to neighboring waters or disappearances), and increased mortality of weaning and newly independent calves. These changes in the dolphin population correlated with [...]

After Sarasota Bay lost 2% of its long-term resident dolphins due to interactions with recreational fishing gear in 2006, the SDRP increased research efforts aimed at providing a better understanding of unnatural dolphin foraging behaviors and other human-dolphin interactions of increasing concern. As a part of this effort, graduate research by Jessica Powell (MS, 2009) [...]

Human interactions (HI) with wild dolphins are a problem of increasing conservation concern. In 2011, we conducted a controlled experiment testing the effectiveness of law enforcement and educational outreach at reducing interactions at an HI hotspot near Sarasota Bay. The project centered on a notorious begging bottlenose dolphin (“Beggar”) that has frequented a small portion [...]

Conservation research, education, and training are among the core activities of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program. Professional training, especially as it relates to conservation capacity building, is an important aspect of our program’s mission and that of its parent division of the Chicago Zoological Society, the Conservation, Education, and Training group. The year 2011 provided [...]

Our lives are full of dreams. Some come true, and others remain on a list. My dream to develop AquaMarina as a team to run marine conservation action based in science in my country, Argentina, followed the typical process from a wish to a challenge. Established in 1998 as a non-profit organization, its mission has [...]