Echolocation occurred significantly more often in daylight hours, suggesting that foraging in offshore areas tends to occur during the day.

In an effort to standardize how multi-looped whistles are treated across studies, we recently had a note accepted by the journal Marine Mammal Science demonstrating that inter-loop intervals in stereotyped sequences of disconnected loops (multiple elements) are shorter and more consistent (less variable) than are the intervals between successive whistles. For whistles with multiple disconnected [...]

We recently had a manuscript accepted by the Journal of Mammalogy reporting the potential use of whistles as indicators of stress in bottlenose dolphins. In particular, we examined the possibility that parameters of bottlenose dolphin signature whistles may serve as indicators of some level of stress. Bottlenose dolphins in Sarasota Bay, Florida, have been recorded [...]

In 2008, we completed experiments (described in previous issues of Nicks’n’Notches) aimed at determining whether dolphins can recognize each others’ whistles by means of voice cues, in the same manner that most people recognize the voices of people that they know. Data are being prepared for publication, and analyses so far indicate that dolphins do [...]

Bottlenose dolphins produce a variety of sounds, most of which are either echolocation or whistles (Figure 1). Echolocation is used mainly in navigation and foraging; a rapid series of short “pulsed” broadband sounds are produced by the dolphin, and the returning echo is used by the animal to determine information about its environment (for example, [...]

Our playback studies are designed to test specific questions that arise from the observational studies on dolphin communication that we conduct. All of our playback studies are carried out during brief capture-release events, allowing us to carefully observe the dolphins’ reactions, such as whether they turn their head towards the speaker when they hear a [...]

Stress has been defined as an environmental effect on an individual that overtaxes its functional abilities. The diversity of stress responses among marine mammals makes it difficult to develop a comprehensive diagnostic protocol to evaluate stress. The development of a relatively non-invasive tool with which to evaluate stress in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) could allow [...]

The welfare of an organism, or the state of an animal in relation to how it attempts to cope with its environment, is often related to the stress that it experiences (Broom and Johnson 1993). The diversity and limited observation of stress responses among marine mammals makes it difficult to develop a comprehensive diagnostic protocol. [...]