By Randall Wells, PhD, Chicago Zoological Society Understanding the fates of dolphins returned to the wild following rescue, stranding, and rehabilitation is crucial to evaluating the effectiveness of treatments and knowing what should be done in the best interests of the sick or injured animals. Over the past two years, we have received grants from [...]

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 [...]

An SDRP team, led by Program Director Dr. Randy Wells, is planning to travel to New Orleans, LA to assist with the release and then monitoring of a rehabilitated wild dolphin. The young male dolphin, referred to as LA-168, was found on the southern coast of Louisiana during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It was [...]

We have been using the ratios of stable isotopes in dolphin tissues to examine feeding patterns of bottlenose dolphins along Florida’s west coast. Results from the stable isotope analyses suggest that differences exist at the population level, which allow us to distinguish offshore and various inshore dolphin populations, and we have started to examine potential [...]

In July 2006, NOAA’s Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program conducted the second year of our dolphin health assessment research project in St. Joseph Bay, Florida with support from partners including the Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, Mote Marine Laboratory, NOAA’s Ocean Service, Ocean Embassy, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Florida [...]

Beginning in August 2006 and continuing to the present, a persistent bloom of the red-tide alga, Karenia brevis, has been present in Sarasota Bay and surrounding waters. Cell concentrations have reached levels of several million cells per liter of seawater, indicating a severe red tide event. As point of reference, cell concentrations of 1,000 cells [...]

Beginning in January 2005 and continuing to the time of this writing (October), a persistent bloom of the red-tide alga, Karenia brevis, has been present in Sarasota Bay and surrounding waters. Cell concentrations have reached levels approaching 300 million cells per liter of seawater, indicating a severe red tide event. As point of reference, concentrations [...]

During 1999 and 2004, bottlenose dolphins along the Florida panhandle experienced two unusual mortality events resulting in the deaths of more than 227 dolphins. The majority of these strandings were located near St. Joseph Bay, but it is not known which stock(s) were impacted. This project represents the first effort to identify dolphin ranging patterns [...]