Category: Blog & Field Reports

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.

We just finished dinner, which was preceded by our first ever, collectively night snorkel. Some of us were lucky enough to see a lionfish or an octopus or a sea cucumber! We also saw a puffer fish. We entered the water at dusk and then exited when it was fully dark. It was eerie and surreal at the same time.

The afternoon had a break before our night snorkel that allowed some of us to kayak or paddleboard … or nap.

Our morning began with a downpour! And yet, we all got to the water taxi stand before Kathleen and Justin! Luckily, the rain subsided as we began our first session of space use data collection. Today was our visit to Maya Key.

Our first day was a good one with everyone up and at the taxi dock before 6:30 AM for our first data collection session! The dolphins were playful and social – mostly with each other, which was a good thing! Champ and Stan occasionally sought out Kathleen’s fins to play and one or two dolphins tried to entice one or more of us to play the seaweed game but we resisted.

Breakfast (and lunch and dinner for that matter) were as delicious as Justin promised in our various pre-trip meetings.