Category: Blog & Field Reports

We met at the water taxi stand at 6 AM for the short ride to Bailey’s Key. I was in the water by 6:15 AM and observing dolphins very soon thereafter! The underwater visibility was less than the previous days but the dolphins were just as social.

Another really good morning of visibility and socializing dolphins! The three one-year-old calves were quite rambunctious today. During the early morning session, Stan was zipping around sometimes with Shawn and others with his older sister, Elli. Calli and Elli were also quite enamored of my fins and crowded me often while I watched the others in the group. Maury was in infant position first with Gracie and then with Mrs. B. Shawn was non-phased by Maury usurping his spot with Gracie and just pushed her away a bit to nurse.

A rainy night dawned to cloudy, overcast skies that suggested the water visibility would be … murky, to be nice! But, the underwater visibility turned out to be not too bad! The adult males were outside the main pool area. So, our early AM (6:30 AM!) data collection session was focused on the adult females and juveniles and calves. It was a delight to watch Dory, Stan and Shawn, the one-year olds, zip around each other in a sort of tag while their moms stayed close by.

We all arrived Saturday afternoon after relatively short flights and a REALLY long line through immigration.

Hi Supporters! Any electronic adoption kit orders received between 5:00 p.m. ET, 30 Sept and 9 October will be filled on 9 October.

It is true – my bags seem smaller than in years past! Maybe I’m following technology’s pattern in having my gear get smaller and smaller with more years accumulated! As with our January 2017 field course, I’ve been able to streamline the MVA2 packing such that it fits into a carry-on! I still need a checked bag for my bathing suits, shorty wetsuit, and fins (etc.) but it’s nice to “travel light!” And yes, 1 checked bag and two carry-ons is “traveling light” for me when going into the field!

In a couple of days, 20 of us will be traveling from the USA to Roatan to join DCP’s next eco-tour research session at Anthony’s Key Resort in association with the Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences (RIMS). I am really looking forward to this week of observations and data collection of the dolphins at RIMS! It’s been 9.5 months since we were at AKR and we have a slightly modified MVA2 system to use. A few weeks ago, John and I (mostly John) retrofitted the MVA2 with a new, tapeless camera.

This quarter’s issue is full of updates from the field, particularly reports from our Bimini field site. Hear from Kel and the summer “Trio”, check out which adopt-a-dolphins we saw and meet Sulfur and Name-A-Dolphin ID#101. You’ll see Kathleen has been busy preparing publications and Justin is making an awesome book donation.

After spending so much of this summer referring to “The Trio” (Patrick, Kaiya and Tori, our summer interns), it was hard not think of them as I spent a nice portion of the afternoon observing three Atlantic spotted dolphins! I was able to complete trip #43 of the season with Bimini Adventures, once again joining a visiting research team. Since this team was focused on bow riding dolphins, I knew the day would only bring surface observations.

DCP ID#102 has her name!! We are pleased to introduce, Sulfur, who was named by by Rahul K. Sai as a gift for Snigda Sindhuri Sagabala as part of DCP’s Name-A-Dolphin program. Sulfur, a juvenile Atlantic spotted dolphin observed off Bimini, The Bahamas is now available for adoption! Check out her adoption page here. Thank you, Rahul, for your generous support.