Oh Baby! Meet the 2024 Sarasota Bay Dolphin Calves! 2075 is the first young-of-the-year (YOY) Sarasota Bay dolphin of 2024! We captured this image on May 7. If you look closely at the calf, you can see stripes between its head and dorsal fin. These wrinkles are called “fetal folds” or “neonatal
Boat Collision Injures Sarasota Bay Dolphin In July 2024, members of the public reported a dolphin with an injured dorsal fin. Subsequent surveys by the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program allowed us to identify the dolphin as F312, an 8-year-old male dolphin born to FB90, also known as “Killer.” Since his birth in
June 2024 Offshore Dolphin Research Update Since 2022, we’ve been conducting health assessments of offshore dolphins to gather data needed to address critical information gaps for the little-known species that regularly inhabit west Florida’s continental shelf waters. In May 2024, we conducted the final field session of our Florida RESTORE Act Centers of
Playful Young Male Dolphins in Western Australia Grow Up to Have More Offspring Photo by Shark Bay Dolphin Research As humans, we grow up playing with other children. Animals of many species likewise play with their peers. But why? Play has its costs, especially for young animals. It uses energy
Fishing Line Cuts Like a Saw — Rescuing "Roy Kent" Starting in February 2024, we made numerous attempts to remotely disentangle an 8-year-old, 7.5-foot, 315-pound male dolphin nicknamed "Roy Kent" (F334) from the fishing line embedded in his tail fluke. Finally, on May 21, we were able to catch him, remove most
2615 Rescued from Fishing Line Entanglement During our May 2024 dolphin health assessments, we conducted a disentanglement on a 4-year-old male dolphin. 2615, is a calf seen infrequently in our study area but we know him to be the son of F261, age 49. The entanglement badly disfigured his dorsal fin and
Dolphin conservation is a team effort — from working together to understand dolphins and their communities, to understanding and mitigating the risks they face around the world. Every year, we spend thousands of hours on the water gathering data about the status of the dolphins in Sarasota Bay, learning about the
Using Aerial Drones for Dolphin Research SDRP has a long history of taking to the skies to study dolphins. In the 1990s and early 2000s, a video camera suspended from a tethered blimp was used to get overhead behavioral records of dolphins and manatees. Today, given the sharp rise of
High-resolution data-loggers reveal fine-scale movement and foraging behavior of offshore dolphins “Bill,” an Atlantic spotted dolphin, with a satellite-linked tag on his dorsal fin and DTAG on his back upon release in September 2022. During offshore health assessments in September 2022, we deployed digital-acoustic archival tags (DTAGs) via suction cups on
Since 1970, we’ve been studying Sarasota Bay’s dolphin community — getting to know their lineages, their companions and even their favorite hangouts. But understanding the dynamics of a population of animals also includes understanding how they interact with their environment, especially learning about the types of food they prefer, the places where they find
