Student Exhibition Showcases Dolphin Research

A new exhibition created by students at New College of Florida explores the intersections between dolphin social networks and the networks of scientists who study them. It allows visitors to dive into the world of dolphins to learn how they communicate and connect with one another through sound. It also highlights some of the ways in which research at New College and in the local community contributes to understanding Sarasota Bay dolphin networks.

Students, faculty and community members across disciplines collaborated on the exhibition, which was developed and realized in the context of two New College classes, Dr. Katherine Brion’s “Museum Studies in Theory and Practice: Interdisciplinary Exhibition Development” and longtime SDRP collaborator Dr. Heidi Harley’s “New Stories, New College: An Interdisciplinary Laboratory on Showcasing New College Scholarship” classes. The exhibition was made possible through the support of New College’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant, “New College and the Cross-College Alliance in the Community: Strengthening Community Outreach and Engagement.”

• The exhibition is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday through April 26 in College Hall Patio, 351 College Drive, Sarasota, FL 34234

We’re heading into the busy summer field season and there’s a lot happening around the Lab and out in the field, including monthly dolphin surveys, seasonal purse-seine catch-and-release fish surveys and acoustic tagging and monitoring.

In March, we had some challenging weather conditions that led to fewer-than-expected dolphin observations. I am happy to report, however, that field teams did find 10 of the 14 calves born in 2022 and 14 of the 18 calves that remain from the 2021 season. They also observed three of the seven Sarasota Bay dolphins aged 40 and older. (The video below shows the oldest Sarasota Bay dolphin, FB54.)

Preliminary analyses of the January-March purse-seine prey surveys indicate our lowest average fish catches since 2004 — the year we started this work. Ongoing analyses seek to determine the degree of changes to fish community structure and species diversity during winter red tides and population recovery post-red tide. Our next fish surveys will take place in June.

This month, we’re beginning a new effort to study dolphin prey movement patterns and residency. Senior Researcher Elizabeth Berens McCabe and Staff Scientist Dr. Krystan Wilkinson deployed 18 acoustic receiver stations in Palma Sola Bay and will be tagging striped mullet with acoustic transmitters to follow their movement patterns in work funded by the Mote Scientific Foundation. Striped mullet are an important dolphin prey species and we hope these efforts will provide further insights into their populations.

Research Associate Kim Bassos-Hull and Krystan also serviced and downloaded data from 37 acoustic receivers in the Sarasota Coast Acoustic Network (SCAN), which is focused mainly on coastal shark and ray populations. The receivers detected 121 tagged fish including: 27 whitespotted eagle rays, four devil rays, five blacknose sharks, six blacktip sharks, six bull sharks, one great hammerhead shark, five scalloped hammerhead sharks, four sandbar sharks, one tiger shark, four snook and 58 tags from researchers outside the array area. The remaining receivers in the SCAN array will be serviced and downloaded between April and June and summarized data will be presented at the International Conference of Fish Telemetry (ICFT) and American Elasmobranch Society (AES) conferences this summer.

Kim also traveled to the Galapagos to help train researchers from Galapagos Science Center-Universidad de San Francisco Quito in techniques for sampling and tagging rays and she helped place the first-ever acoustic tag on a spotted eagle ray in the Galapagos in Puerto Grande, San Cristobal Island, which will contribute to a multi-species study of sharks and rays in nursery lagoons.

Other international efforts this year will include trips to the Mediterranean, where we’re helping the Ionian Dolphin Project, and Argentina where we support conservation efforts for franciscana dolphins, one of the most threatened species in the Southwestern Atlantic.

At this writing, we are making plans with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and NOAA for yet another disentanglement rescue. This one is near Naples, where we will try to remove line from the flukes of the 1.5-yr-old calf of Skipper. We performed a disentanglement intervention with Skipper in 2014 when she herself was just a calf. Skipper is the sister of Seymour, a dolphin we helped to disentangle in 2012.

This 2014 image shows the injury to Skipper's tail following her entanglement.

We’ll keep you posted with updates throughout the summer — in the meantime, just a reminder to be dolphin-safe boaters and anglers. The dolphins are depending on us!

Wishing you a summer of fair winds and following seas (and no hurricanes)!

Randy Wells

Rescue Update

Back in February, we led a multi-agency rescue of calf 2094 from a severe entanglement — she had 10 feet of monofilament and micro-multifilament braided lines cutting deeply into her tail flukes. During the rescue, we were able to attach a small satellite-linked tag on her mom’s (F209) dorsal fin so that we could continue to follow their progress after the rescue.

Since then, we’ve been able to observe the pair on multiple occasions.

• March 8: The pair was observed interacting with F213 and her calf. The calves spent much of their time socializing and 2094 didn’t seem to have any trouble maneuvering. Her tail wounds appeared to be healing well.

• March 22: We observed the pair again and the calf was still doing well.

• March 27: We found 2094 with her mom at the north end of Longboat Key and the team stayed with the pair for approximately 1.5 hours. They were in the vicinity of other dolphins through most of the sighting, with F209 & 2094 milling near a rock wall. On occasion they engaged in "travel" and "probable feeding" but returned to milling near the rock wall again before the team left them. 2094 seemed to be in good body condition, was using her flukes, and did not appear to have any trouble keeping up with mom. They both did a fair amount of diving with flukes out.

• April 3: We observed the calf with a large shark bite to her back. Fortunately, she was still with mom, who can help her to survive. One question we have is whether the severe injury she had to her tail made her more vulnerable to a shark attack. That’s one reason we study sharks along with dolphins — to better understand their predator-prey relationship in Sarasota Bay.

• April 4: We observed the calf again with mom and she appeared to be doing well, using her flukes as she should. We know from our research that dolphins can survive some shark bites and we will continue monitoring this calf’s progress.

Conservation Tip of the Month

Did you know that 1 in 20 Sarasota Bay dolphins bears a scar from a vessel collision? As we head into peak boating season, please remember to stay more than 50 yards from wild dolphins — that’s about half the length of a football field.