What Goes Up… Ends Up in the Ocean

We spent five days offshore conducting dolphin research in May. Sadly, dolphins aren’t the only thing we found. We collected 76 balloons and other marine debris up to dozens of miles offshore, including two ghost crab trap lines with floats, and a beach ball. Most of the balloons had Mother’s Day or birthday messages.

Mylar balloons are made of synthetic nylon with a metallic coating, are non-biodegradable and can travel very long distances. They heavily contribute to oceanic waste and animals can become entangled in them or ill from ingesting whole balloons or pieces. Wayward balloons are also extra dangerous for sea turtles because they resemble jellyfish — one of turtles’ common prey items.

Please remember: What goes up comes down and please keep your trash to yourself!

Notes from the Field and Lab

In May, we documented our first new Sarasota dolphin calf of the year! 1654 is the fourth calf of 24-year-old Sarasota resident, F165, and grand-calf of FB75, first identified in 1982. Our field teams found eight of the 13 remaining 2022 calves and 15 of the 18 remaining 2021 calves. We also observed five of six 40-and-older community members in May. Thanks to the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation for their ongoing support of our monthly surveys that allow us to follow the lives of the Sarasota dolphin community.

We’ve also been busy out in the field — first, conducting inshore dolphin health assessments and then moving offshore for tagging and health assessments of deep-water dolphins.

During our inshore health assessments, small groups of dolphins are encircled with a net in shallow waters. We bring the animals aboard a special veterinary exam vessel and place them on pads on a shaded deck. Veterinarians and biologists gather basic information — sex, weight, length — and conduct physical exams. They also conduct ultrasound examinations to determine reproductive status and check the condition of internal organs, and take blood and other biological samples. After a brief period, the animals are released on site.

We’ve been conducting periodic health assessments since 1988, as scientific questions warrant, and as financial support has been available to address the questions. This year, we conducted five days of health assessments with a team of 142 researchers, veterinarians, students, handlers and trainees from the U.S., Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Peru, Spain and Sweden. There were about 105 people on the water each day on 13 to 14 boats, helping to safely and successfully conduct 44 different research projects with each of the six dolphins handled. 

The data collected during health assessments have been used to develop medical reference ranges to understand normal ranges of health parameters that help management agencies detect problems in populations when measures occur outside of these norms. It also lays a foundation for asking additional scientific questions, which makes the process especially valuable. We share summaries of our ongoing research projects each year in our annual report, Nicks ‘n’ Notches, which we post online in January.

• You can read more about our ongoing research in our most recent report here.

On May 17-18, we were also able to tag and collect samples from two bottlenose and two Atlantic spotted dolphins 25-38 miles offshore of Sarasota during the third of four planned offshore health assessment and tagging sessions supported by a grant from the Florida RESTORE Act Centers of Excellence Program. 

All four dolphins received suction-cup-mounted digital archival tags (DTAGs), which are designed to record information and then detach from the animals. We were able to recover the tags when they released and found that they had successfully recorded sounds and behavior. The dolphins will continue to be tracked over the next few months using satellite-linked transmitters. We also photo-documented a sighting of Ken, an offshore bottlenose dolphin that we initially tagged eight miles away last September (now without his tag).

We’ve sampled and tagged nine dolphins of three species since June 2022 for this project, which we’re conducting to provide needed data to address critical information gaps for the little-known dolphin species that regularly inhabit west Florida’s continental shelf waters.

This map shows the initial tracks of the dolphins we tagged offshore during May. 213788 is a bottlenose dolphin nicknamed John; 240130 is an Atlantic spotted dolphin nicknamed Teri; 240131 is a bottlenose dolphin nicknamed Per; and 240132 is an Atlantic spotted dolphin nicknamed Michael.

While many questions remain about the lives of dolphins, one thing is certain: We as individuals can all play an important role in helping to keep our aquatic neighbors safe — especially if it means stowing your trash so it doesn’t blow out of your boat and, yes, hanging on tightly to your balloons — or even forgoing them altogether!

Here’s to fair winds, following seas and a debris-free environment for the dolphins and all our marine neighbors!

Randy Wells

Fin of the Month

Name: F165

Age: 24

Sex: Female

A Dolphin's Life: We first observed F165 as a calf in 1999. Since then, we've recorded 628 sightings of her. Her own mother, FB75, died during a bad red tide in 2006 after ingesting a fishing lure.

During F165's lifetime, we've documented her with four calves. The first, 1651, born in 2011 is deceased. The second, 1652, was born in 2016 and, despite the fact that we observed this calf with shark bites when it was only days old, the calf survived. F165's third calf, 1653, was born in 2019. Then, this year, F165 gave birth to our first calf of 2023. Meet 1654!

For more information on how you can help support wild dolphin research, please email Randy Wells, Director of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, or call 941.374.0449.

Dolphin Biology Research Institute — DBA Sarasota Dolphin Research Program — is dedicated to research and conservation of dolphins and their habitat. 

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