The latest issue of The Dolphin Gazette is here! Get the lowdown on the University of New Brunswick Saint John's visit to Bimini. Dr. Rebecca Singer explains why dolphins seem to have a hard time with the object permanence test. Learn how you can join DCP at Anthony’s Key resort at Roatan, Honduras this coming January. And learn how Kelly Melillo-Sweeting temporarily retired her dolphin-watching binoculars to go chase manatees at Great Harbour Cay.

Click here to download the second issue of 2012!

On Thursday, the weather did not look in our favor for much manatee tracking. So, Kendria and I caught up on our various computer “chores” before making a delivery to the mail boat, bound for Nassau. At around 1700 we received a phone call reporting a manatee at a nearby dock. We grabbed the gear and headed over, but at first, found nothing. Just as we were about to leave, we saw the adult male, who is not yet tagged, swim through the area (followed by a nurse shark!). He was on the move, so we decided to hop in the boat and look for him. We searched the marina and the harbor with no luck. On the way back there he was…with the juvenile male! So, we pulled the boat into a slip and we slipped in the water ourselves. Let no one tell you that it is easy to put a tag on a healthy manatee! These guys were having none of it! So, despite all our effort and good intentions, the tag will have to wait for another day. For now, enjoy this picture of the adult male….

On Friday, our morning began with thunderstorms and Kendria periodically checked the satellite data and radio signals, discovering that Rita & Georgie had moved back south, closer to our position. While we waited for the boat mechanic to arrive, we saw the adult male pass by our dock at noon. It wasn’t until nearly 1700 that the boat was ready, but the radio signals were still strong. Into the boat we went, only to discover that the manatees were just a few docks down – Rita, Georgia, the adult male and the juvenile male! We quickly returned the boat, hopped in the water and just swam to their location. Rita is hardly shy and will seemly do anything to get lettuce from your hand. It’s a special treat for me to be able to touch and feed wild animals (we would never do either with the dolphin in Bimini), but Rita is already accustomed to this type of interaction, so we utilize this comfort level when we need to keep them around (but the manatees are not, and should not be, given food or water otherwise). In this case, we were hoping that holding Rita’s attention would therefore keep the males in the area. This part of our plan worked out, but unfortunately, we still weren’t able to secure the tag on either male. We did come much closer than yesterday though, so hopefully these are just stepping stones to a successful tagging tomorrow!

-Kel

I arrived safely in Great Harbour Cay (Berry Islands) late Tuesday afternoon and was greeted by Kendria Ferguson, BMMRO’s team leader for this manatee tracking project. At the field house, I also met Russell Morgan (Dolphin Cay, Atlantis) and soon, the three of us were on the boat, looking for Rita & Georgie. We did not have to go far before we picked up the radio signal from their tags. Well, technically we were mostly picking up Rita’s signal – Georgie, being a calf, has his tag under water a lot of the time! Soon, we had a visual on the two tags just outside GHC harbor. While we were watching the pair, we also saw different manatees! At least two manatees, possibly three, rolled at the surface, so Kendria suspects Rita & Georgie were following these manatees, who know the area better than Rita & Georgie. As we kept our eyes on Rita & Georgie, we alerted boaters coming into the harbor of the manatees’ presence, encouraging them to slow down and be on the lookout.

On Wednesday the winds picked up, which meant we had to stay on shore throughout the day. I joined Kendria at the local All Ages school, where we met with both lower primary and upper primary students. Their enthusiasm was fantastic! In addition to the obvious tracking efforts, Kendria is also here to provide public education to both the residents and visitors to GHC. I can still hear the children’s chant: “Don’t speeeeeed, for the manateeeeees!” Hopefully their message will reach the adult boat operators in their families.

This project, like any project, is partially a labor of love. Various entities involved in the project have donated funds, time and/or in-kind supplies. But, funding is always a challenge, so BMMRO has created an “Adopt-A-Manatee” program. The adoption kits include a 5x7 photo of manatees, adoption certificate, Rita & Georgie’s story and the BMMRO newsletter. If you are interested in adopting Rita or Georgie, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Please specify that you heard about this program from DCP. To make a donation to directly offset my travel costs (I’m donating my time here), please click here, making sure to specify your donation is for the manatee program.

And of course, follow along with the weekly blog here: http://www.bmmro.blogspot.com/.

Cheers,
Kel

I’m sitting in the South Bimini airport, awaiting my flight to Nassau where I’ll connect to continue to Great Harbour Cay (Berry Islands, Bahamas). Fear not – this is only a temporary break from Bimini. I’ll be back soon! But, what’s going on in GHC?

I’ll be assisting in tracking efforts of Rita and Georgie, two manatees! (Yes! Manatees in The Bahamas!). Rita had been living in Spanish Wells, where she gave birth to Georgie. But, Hurricane Irene displaced them, and they were found in Nassau Harbour. After being captured and then rehabilitated, a team, including folks from the Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organization (BMMRO), Dolphin Cay (Atlantis), Department of Marine Resources and US Geological Studies, released the pair in GHC in April. Since then, the team has been tracking the pair’s movement and has even seen them interacting with the other manatees near GHC!

You can stay updated on the progress of this mother/calf pair here on the DCP website, but you can also get lots of great information at BMMRO’s blog: http://www.bmmro.blogspot.com/

More soon!
Kel

This year’s field course with University of New Brunswick Saint John was another success. It was not without its challenges (two days of terrible weather + one day of fantastic weather and no dolphins), but the group stayed in high spirits and engaged in the course, enjoying exciting snorkel stops, a great underwater observation of crater feeding bottlenose, surfing spotteds and more. Thanks to each and every one of you for coming to Bimini!

The UNBSJ crew also completed another successful beach clean-up last Friday. Local efforts had also been made in recent weeks to clean up Radio Beach (Alice Town, North Bimini) so the litter load was less than last year. We were still able to collect about ten bags of trash in only one hour! A special thanks also to DCP Conservation Member Giorgia P., whose support ensured this beach clean-up happened. Just think of the trash that won’t end up in the ocean now!

As for me, I’ll be off Bimini for about a week studying a different marine mammal on a different Bahamian island. Stay tuned for details!

Until then,
Kel

On Wednesday morning, we had our second guest lecture, this time from Dr. Justin Gregg and on dolphin cognition. It was really interesting and we later thought about whether or not there was one thing that tells us that dolphins are highly cognitive creatures or if we have to take into account a combination of factors.

We had a passionate debate on dolphin hunt – it was a mock IWC debate, and just like the real IWC, things got pretty heated. But, we were all still friends at the end. Our boat trip departed at about 15:30 and we saw a crazy amount of flying fish and a leaping mackerel. Oh, and a headless lionfish floating on the ocean surface! On the way back to shore, we saw bottlenose dolphins, but they did not want to stay close enough for an underwater observation. We did see some synchronized swimming and wave surfing, particularly when a large yacht passed through the area. There were at least two calves in the group and one of the adults came up for a quick bowride.

We ended the day with yummy turkey dinner with “jiggly” stuffing, which had our TA in quite the giggle fit…..and since many of us just finished a course at the SharkLab, we’ll also be voting in DCP’s online poll (see right side of this screen) so that sharks can at least beat out squid!

Until next time,
UNBSJ

The sun came out! After which, Courtney got a good luck charm for the group in the form of sea gull poop on her shirt! We split into two groups for snorkel trips to “Shell Beach” off South Bimini. The first group saw lots of cool fish, some of which were hiding under rocks. We even saw an arrow crab and lizard fish. For some of us, this was our first time snorkeling off a boat. The second group saw a nurse shark, barracuda, squid (or was it a cuttlefish?), porcupine fish, ocean trigger fish (aka ocean tally) and most saw a very large spotted eagle ray. While each team was snorkeling, the other team discussed DNA sampling via fecal collection. Such fun ;-)

And then, there were dolphins! But before we could see the dolphins, some of us were tricked (temporarily) into believing North Rock was an old German U-boat. The first dolphin sighting was two Atlantic spotted dolphin adults, who were joined by two youngsters and another older dolphin. Someone in the group might have thought one was a shark….but we won’t tell who. The dolphins were more interested in surfing the waves than interacting with us, but we did get good look at the oldest dolphin “playing” with sea weed…

We were almost back home, and had given up hope that we would get a chance to be in the water with the dolphins…and there they were: bottlenose dolphins. We were able to be in the water, hearing and feeling their echolocation. It seemed the dolphins were crater feeding (aka bottom grubbing) with at least three nurse sharks as company. Our conservative estimate is that there were 8-10 bottlenose in the group, but we could eventually confirm this number through photo-ID. We noted the distinctive notches in the dorsal fins and one in particular had distinct “W” scar from an old shark bite. We all had the chance to be in the water as the sun set and headed home happily exhausted to a BBQ dinner and brownies!

High hopes for tomorrow,
UNBSJ

On Sunday, 16 students (plus Professor Steve Turnbull, PhD and a student returning as TA) from the University of New Brunswick Saint John (UNBSJ) arrived in Bimini. About half of us had just wrapped up our amazing week at the SharkLab. All limbs accounted for! And minds = blown. The weather wasn’t in our favor on day one, but our water taxi driver, Hyram, got us safely to North Bimini were we met with Kel and settled into our roomie-rooms at the Sea Crest with our freshwater showers! Shortly after, we welcomed the new seven who just arrived that morning.  For those of us just arriving, we were pleasantly surprised at our smooth landing in Bimini as we were in just a 9 seat plane on a rainy day. That rain was blowing into our faces during the (thankfully) short water taxi ride from S. Bimini to N. Bimini. In fact, the plane ride was pretty short too! It was cool to see both shores of the island from our rooms! We all came together as a group and got an intro to DCP and their work in Bimini. We learned the ropes (aka rules/riot act) and met several local stray dogs. The locals (people) were fairly quite during the rain, but they are friendly and eager to say hello. The island is interesting, with so many blooming flowers, small stores, and even a Royal Bank of Canada. We worked around the challenging the weather by focusing on this introduction to the dolphins and learned first-hand the downfalls of field work – we’re at the mercy of Mother Nature. In the evening, we watched a film and then went to bed.

We did not see the sun for the first two days, but we did see flooded streets – could we have snorkeled there? Luckily, the weather cleared enough on Monday so we were able to go snorkeling from the beach. The beach is covered in conch shells – we hadn’t imagined that! During our snorkel we headed to the Gallant Lady and were impressed with how many colorful fish we saw, just snorkeling the shoreline. Along the way saw southern stingrays, sergeant majors, doctorfish, mojara, bar jacks, French grunts, striped grunts, juvenile blue tangs, juvenile parrot fish, long-finned damsel fish, fairy basslet, blue headed wrasse…at least, those are the species IDs we came up with! We also noted some different behaviors – larger fish seemed to be more bold, whereas the very young and small fish were taking covering between the rocks. After snorkeling, we got a more detailed introduction to the dolphins – their anatomy, photo-identification and other topics. We ended Monday night with a yummy dinner and ice cream (after enjoying lots of Bimini bread)!

Stay tuned for more field reports from us,
UNBSJ

Wednesday was still quite breezy here in Bimini, but it was calm enough for an overdue dolphin trip with Bimini Adventures. We departed at 1500, hopeful, but realistic that we might need to turn back. Well, turn back we did not and, in case you weren’t sure, the title of this field report is very, very sarcastic! Shortly before 1700 we saw a group of young Atlantic spotted dolphins, with Tilly (#87) leading the pack. They seemed pretty busy surfing the seas, but we decided to give a water entry a try. We were not disappointed! Tilly (#87) was paired with un-named #95 while Milo (#96) was paired with a slightly older male, who may become ID#99. It was a blast watching them and they gave me a workout with their circle swims around me and the MVA2. After we thought they may have swum away, we called up to Al who advised us to stay put for, and I quote, “the mother-load.” While it wasn’t a recorded breaking group size, our group of four increased to at least 11 dolphins, including Lil’ Jess (#35), Noodle (#94), un-named #97 and, I think, #70. It was awesome!

We headed back toward shore, grateful and content when we were suddenly greeted by a calf. The calf at first seemed to be alone, but then, as expected, mom showed up and we were suddenly with three mother/calf pairs, including Trudy (#57) and her calf, and, I think, Leslie (#80) and hers. Although we did not swim with this group, it was great getting glimpses of them from the boat.

Thanks for following!
Kel

Who: You! Join DCP on a trip to Roatan led by Dr. Kathleen Dudzinski. Each trip accommodates up to 12 participants. *Please note: children under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian - absolutely no exceptions!!
Where: Anthony's Key Resort, Roatan, Honduras
When: 5-12 January 2013 (Contact us for the most up-to-date information regarding space availability!)
Cost: $1,765 per person per week (Returning DCP participants will receive a $75 discount on their trip fee.)

For more details, including the full list of what's included, click here.

A 25% deposit will be needed to hold your space on the trip. The payment schedule for the remainder will be determined. Recieve a ~3% discount if you pay by US check or money order. Note: a portion of your ecotour trip fee may be tax-deductible. Consult your tax advisor for more details.