Nicks 'n' Notches Online
A monthly enewsletter from the
Sarasota Dolphin Research Program
February 2021
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When students see themselves represented in science, everyone WinS! |
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Join us next week — Feb. 22-26 — for free STEM programming featuring amazing women researchers working in marine science!
At 1 p.m. ET each day, we're partnering with Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium to host lively science demonstrations and discussions for students in grades 5 through 9. Students will have the opportunity to chat with actual scientists and bonus activities will reinforce concepts covered during the programs.
SDRP Postdoctoral Scientist Dr. Krystan Wilkinson is the week's co-host and on Thursday, SDRP Staff Scientist Dr. Katie McHugh will be the featured researcher. She'll show you how animals talk to each other and how biologists are using animal sounds to help conservation efforts.
Here are the topics and featured guests for the rest of the week:
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Monday: Animal nutrition with Georgia Aquarium’s Dr. Lisa Hoopes
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Tuesday: Habitat loss and how it impacts animals with Mote Marine Laboratory’s Jasmin Graham.
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Wednesday: Animal photo ID and what it takes to identify animals in the field with Ximena Arvizu, of the Eagle Ray Project.
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Friday: How just a few pollutants can quickly build into a large, toxic amount through bioaccumulation with Laura Garcia Barcia of Florida International University.
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Notes from the Field and Lab |
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Ed. Note: Dr. Katie McHugh was the lead author on a new paper evaluating the costs and benefits of intervening when dolphins face life threatening entanglements, so we asked her to take over this month's Notes from the Field and Lab
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Some of the most popular stories we tell are about the successful rescues we’ve undertaken to save wild dolphins with life-threatening injuries from entanglement in fishing gear or other types of debris. Social media posts about these heartwarming saves get thousands of ‘likes’ and ‘shares.’
But mounting such rescue efforts can be extremely challenging.
Rescues are expensive to undertake, they are often logistically difficult to organize and conduct, even with Southwest Florida’s strong network of trained responders stretching from Clearwater to Marco Island, and they can be dangerous for dolphins and people.
While we think it’s important to save each individual animal we can, as scientists we know that it’s also important to evaluate the costs and benefits of these rescues and to determine how they impact an overall dolphin population.
The ultimate goal for each intervention we undertake with approval from the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is tasked with protecting wild dolphins, is that we want the animals to remain in or return to wild populations to survive and reproduce. This goal also has two complementary objectives:
- To help individual dolphins survive and heal from their injuries;
- To allow animals that would have otherwise died, to remain as functioning members of local populations contributing to the community’s stability and survival in the face of many concurrent and cumulative threats.
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So how do we determine success? |
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One key factor, of course, is by looking at how long an animal survives after an intervention. Previous studies — including those led by our program’s Director, Dr. Randy Wells — indicate that survival for six weeks after an intervention is a good benchmark for understanding the success for an individual cetacean. But what about the impact on a larger population?
Fortunately, the Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program has spent more than 50 years monitoring the Sarasota Bay dolphin population and works closely with other nearby dolphin studies. This rich, long-term dataset allowed us to take a step back and look at dolphin interventions from a wider perspective — 35 years to be exact.
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In 2016, we received reports of an entangled dolphin off Nokomis Beach. We found then 10-year-old Bill entangled in a crab trap line and tethered in place with his blowhole barely above water. With our intervention, he survived and we continued to see him through August of last year. |
This picture shows four long-term resident mothers and their calves in 2017. Over the decades, we had assisted three of the four moms. Without our intervention these moms' contributions to the Sarasota Bay dolphin community would have been lost. |
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We found that:
- Nearly all rescued individuals — 92 percent — survived longer than six weeks post-release, with 13 still observed frequently within their prior resident communities, in good physical health, and engaging in normal behavior.
- Approximately 75% of rescued dolphins in our study survived over multiple years.
- Survivorship rates did not decline substantially between one and five years post-rescue, meaning that survival beyond one year may be a useful benchmark of long-term success.
Importantly, all living animals remained in their local communities, and rescued females that reached reproductive maturity have gone on to produce offspring — that’s 12 post-intervention calves to date just in Sarasota Bay!
Together these findings strongly support the idea that interventions to save individuals with life-threatening anthropogenic — human induced — injuries provide benefits not only to the welfare of those individuals, but also to the stability and growth potential of their local populations. In other words, success!
Dr. Katie McHugh
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Reducing the Need to Intervene |
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One of the best ways to ensure that wild dolphin populations thrive is to make sure that we keep trash — especially abandoned rope and fishing gear — out of our waterways, and by following a few simple tips designed to protect marine animals. These “Best Practices” were developed by marine scientists and wildlife managers working with boaters, anglers, and fishing guides.
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Rescues are only possible with help from members of the public who report animals in distress so that trained responders can help animals. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has developed an app to make reporting a snap.
Dolphin & Whale 911 — available for free where you get your apps — allows you to make reports of live or dead stranded, injured or entangled marine mammals from any coastal location in the U.S. and its territories.
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Have you seen our new website? www.SarasotaDolphin.org includes information about some of our past rescues. We'll be adding new information to this page, along with archival information about rescues and about cetaceans that we've provided follow-up monitoring for, so be sure to bookmark the page and check back regularly for more.
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Name: F131, Claire
Age: 33
Sex: Female
A Dolphin's Life: Claire is the daughter of dolphin Genie and was named after the wife of the Perry Gilbert, the director of Mote Marine Lab, where the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program was founded more than 50 years ago. She's been observed more than 1,280 times.
Claire had her first calf when she was 8 years old and has had eight calves to date, with four still alive. Her most recent calf was born in 2016. She also has five grand-calves, all from her daughter F159; two of them are still alive. One of the calves (F233) had a calf of her own in 2019. While that calf did not survive long, it was the first known sixth-generation calf in the Sarasota Bay dolphin community.
In the summer of 2019, we saw Claire with a large shark bite — a wound she survived!
Since her birth in 1988, Claire has seen many changes. On the day we first saw her, the population of Sarasota County was about 265,000 (now more than 434,000), teenager Debbie Gibson had her first No. 1 hit with “Foolish Beat,” and the average price of a gallon of gas was 90 cents.
Knowing that female dolphins can live well into their 60s, we hope Claire will be around for decades to come!
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Claire suffered a shark bite in 2019. |
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In this image, you can see the bite has healed. |
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In this picture, Claire (in the rear) swims with her seventh calf and fellow community member Merrily with her own calf. |
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Celebrating
50 Years of Research,
Conservation and Education
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Support Dolphin Research Today |
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Each year, it takes approximately $1 million to fund the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program. Each grant and each gift helps to ensure that we can continue to learn about and help some of the world’s most fascinating creatures.
You can help ensure the future of this important and unparalleled wild dolphin research by making a gift today.
Gift options
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Donate to the Dolphin Biology Research Institute. This Sarasota-based nonprofit organization was established in 1982 to provide critical logistical and other operational support to the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program.
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For more information on how you can help support wild dolphin research, please contact Cindy Zeigler, CZS Chief Advancement Officer, at cindy.zeigler@czs.org or 708.688.8263.
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Follow Us on Social Media |
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Dolphin Biology Research Institute — DBA Sarasota Dolphin Research Program — is dedicated to research and conservation of dolphins and their habitat. Community Foundation of Sarasota County Giving Partner Profile available here.
DBRI IS A 501(C)3 ORGANIZATION — FEDERAL TAX ID #59-2288387. A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION (#CH1172) AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL-FREE 1-800-435-7352 WITHIN THE STATE OR AT WWW.FDACS.GOV/CONSUMER-RESOURCES/CHARITIES. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE.
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