We’ve got some exciting news to share about our ongoing efforts to conduct health assessments of offshore dolphins: In September, we were able to conduct assessments and tag four dolphins over the West Florida Shelf. The SDRP is leading this project, which involves a multi-institution team funded by the Florida RESTORE Act Centers of
Are you a college student studying marine biology, biology, ecology, zoology, wildlife, fisheries, or a related field and interested in learning more about how dolphin research is conducted by participating in the world’s longest running study of a wild dolphin population? We’re now accepting applications for our Winter 2023 Internship Program, which this year
To record dolphin sounds, we place non-invasive hydrophones mounted on suction cups on a dolphin’s melon (“forehead”) and record the sounds that they make. We’ve been recording dolphin whistles since the 1970s. Today, the Sarasota Dolphin Whistle Database contains 926 recording sessions of 293 individual dolphins; we know the age, sex and
Dolphin F259 Stats Name: F259 Sex: Female Age: Born 2013 A Dolphin's Life F259 was born in 2013 to a dolphin named Saida Beth, FB33. We’re excited to report that she’s a first-time mom this year (2022), having given birth to
What is animal residency and how do we define and measure it? In marine mammal research, residency is often used to describe the place that animals (or groups of animals) occupy in a given geographic space over a long period of time. In fact, the SDRP made the discovery that bottlenose dolphins can form
The CZS-SDRP curates the Gulf of Mexico Dolphin Identification System (GoMDIS), which combines, standardizes, and serves as an online archive for dolphin ID catalogues from groups throughout the Gulf of Mexico — including Mexico and Cuba. This repository allows us to identify dolphins throughout the Gulf and discover changes in ranging patterns or even
Did you know that stingrays are dolphin neighbors? They share share shallow seagrass habitat in Sarasota Bay where they forage for food. Dolphins are even occasionally "barbed" by the stingray's venomous spine. These spines can also break off in the dolphins, causing injury or even death. Mote Marine Laboratory's Strandings Investigation Program determined that
If they are what they eat, what are dolphins eating? Thanks to our long-term studies — including seasonal fish surveys — we know what the most common prey fish are in Sarasota Bay dolphin diets. But how do their diets change during events like red tides? SDRP’s Theresa Tatom-Naecker is testing a technique called
SDRP Founder Blair Irvine (left) and Sam Ridgway, 1967. The marine mammal scientific community has lost two of the field’s greats: Sam Ridgway and William F. Perrin. These founders of modern marine mammal science were indirectly involved in the creation and development of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP), and
Dolphin F155 Stats Name: F155 Sex: Female Age: Born 1990 A Dolphin's Life Murphy Brown was born in 1990 to FB05, one of the earliest dolphins we documented (back in 1971, just a year after our research program began). She is
The mission of the Chicago Zoological Society is “to inspire conservation leadership by engaging people and communities with wildlife and nature.”
