2011 Entanglement in fishing gear is a significant conservation concern for marine species in the state of Florida and worldwide. The Florida Entanglement Working Group (FEWG) was formed in 2003 to focus on these issues in Florida state waters and includes several state (FWC), federal (NOAA), and non-profit organizations as contributing members (the Sarasota Dolphin [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

In response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) was performed on the St. Joseph Bay bottlenose dolphin community. The overall goals of the NRDA process, which is part of NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP), are to: 1) Identify the extent of resources that were damaged 2) [...]

Much concern surrounded the potential catastrophic impacts of the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill on wildlife and habitats in the Gulf of Mexico. The most common cetaceans in inshore waters of the Gulf, bottlenose dolphins, reside in coastal waters and bays, sounds, and estuaries where exposure to oil from the DWH incident was [...]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) continues to help the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SRDP) in the area of bottlenose dolphin health assessment. Since 2002, we have assisted the program by developing sample collection procedures, archiving samples in the NIST Marine Environmental Specimen Bank (Marine ESB), assisting in field collections, and analyzing dolphin [...]

A yearling bottlenose dolphin whose survival was threatened by entanglement in fishing line was freed by a joint SDRP and Mote Marine Laboratory team. For three months, the calf, known as C797 (the 7th documented calf of female FB79), had fishing line wrapped through its mouth and around its dorsal fin and body. From the [...]