Category: Blog & Field Reports

We got what we wished for last night … no rain and decent underwater visibility allowed for a 34-minute underwater data collection session at Bailey’s Key this morning! We saw just about everyone except French and Champ underwater. Tank spent time with his mom, Bailey, as well as with Stan. You can see Bailey and Tank in this photo. The underwater current was stronger than yesterday, which gave Kathleen a strong workout! And the dolphins were social and active. It was a good morning!

Nicole went to Maya Key today with the AKR picnic team.

We woke to the sound of the surf but not the patter of rain drops! The rain had stopped in the night, if only long enough for our data collection session! I was in the water by 7:05 AM after having introduced Nicole to the dolphins from above the water at Bailey’s Key. You can see Stan and two friends waiting for me to enter the water in this blog photo.

We, and by we, I mean Nicole and me, are in a room on Anthony’s Key where the waves and wind are pounding and liquid is falling from the sky! We are settled in and hoping the rain stops for tomorrow’s data collection session. Sadly, the student group had to postpone their week field course with DCP to Roatan for this week. This decision was made yesterday afternoon.

This year will have me/DCP visiting Roatan four times! And my second trip begins tomorrow morning! I will meet up with the Professors Heather Hill and Melissa Karlin from St. Mary’s University (StMU) and their students either at the Roatan airport or at Anthony’s Key Resort.

The first issue of 2020 for DCP’s newsletter, The Dolphin Gazette is ready for you! We hope you enjoy reading about Kathleen’s time collecting data & teaching at RIMS (Honduras) and upcoming opportunities to join us in the field at both our Bimini, The Bahamas and Roatan, Honduras field sites. Kathleen shares some thoughts on DCP’s 20th Anniversary, along with some old photos. And, we feature Adopt-A-Wild-Dolphin Split Jaw and share a just-for-fun word search. Click here to download your free PDF.

On Tuesday morning, I was welcomed back to Bimini Primary School. I chatted with grades 2, 3 and 4 about DCP and the dolphins found around Bimini. The students were eager and respectful – thank you! Though, any time I’m talking to students and explain that I have been studying Bimini’s dolphins for longer than they’ve been alive….sure does make a gal feel old!

Thank to you to the Principal and teachers for having me. I hope my visit was a small part of inspiring Bimini’s youth to value and prioritize their ocean home.

DCP is pleased to offer you an unexpected chance to get your hands on our limited-edition 20th Anniversary DCP t-shirts featuring the original DCP logo on the front pocket! This special design is available for our short sleeve and long sleeve t-shirts – both priced at the special anniversary price of $20.20 (to celebrate our 20th anniversary in the year 2020, wink wink).

Short sleeve shirts are available in white, gray, light blue, teal ice and key lime. Long sleeve are available in white and gray.

This is a brief, pre-order campaign.

We escaped the rain and thunder this morning as we went out to conduct our final surface observation and space use data collection session while Kathleen was recording the dolphins. This morning was quite quiet during most of the session but then it ended with some dolphins doing flips … it felt like they were sending us off with flare! This was good considering Kathleen truncated her data collection session because the underwater visibility was horrible (to quote Kathleen – it sucked!).

We began our day observing Kathleen’s data collection session in the pouring rain, as usual. There was an atypical lull in activity at the surface but a few of the dolphins came over to play. Izzy was even gifted a freshly caught blue tang by one of the dolphins! After breakfast, we watched Kathleen’s footage from the morning and are finally starting to get the hang of IDing the dolphins… just in time to head home.

During our morning break, we reaped the benefits of Fiesta Night. Coral got a lovely free massage.

Our morning data collection was rain-free! It was quite pleasant to watch the dolphins as the sun came over the mountain behind us. The dolphins were very social and Sandy and Calli were near the surface rolling and playing often. Everyone was much more centered and focused when collecting the space use observational data, also. The activity levels were more clear and confirming numbers of dolphins in each area was more reliable for us.