Monday was a busy day! While Kel prepped for the boat trip, Nicole departed Connecticut and met Kathleen at Fort Lauderdale International Airport. The wind continued to make for challenging dolphin searching, but Kathleen & Nicole still arrived on Bimini reasonably on time (despite an unruly passenger and an aborted landing!). At sea, it was more searching (and searching). But, we didn’t have to wait too long before coming upon a group of bottlenose dolphins.
Category: Blog & Field Reports
We found the elusive spotteds!
Thursday morning began with a meeting between Kathleen and the film crew. While swimming with the bottlenose on Wednesday, the crew had heard an unusual vocalization that they asked Kathleen to take a look at. She was able to pull the section of audio to look at it on a spectrogram for a better understanding of the vocalization.
More wind, plus hungry bottlenose!
The weather has continued to be unseasonably challenging here in Bimini. Still, we continued our search for dolphins on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday we saw bottlenose dolphins, but as with previous sightings they were on the move and showed no interest in changing their plans. Their movements combined with the rough seas made getting still photos nearly impossible. Still, I hope we’ll be able to identify at least one or two individuals. On Thursday, we spent a fair bit of time following two adult Atlantic spotted dolphins.
Alright wind. We get it.
On Sunday, I met with the team from CINE FILMS Europe who is on Bimini for the next two weeks filming for their Ocean Giants production. We chatted about what to expect from the dolphins in the area and DCP’s research. On Monday, we left the dock at 1300 in search of dolphins. We knew the wind would not be in our favor, but at least the skies were clear! We came upon a group of bottlenose dolphins and there were plenty of them.
The Dolphin Gazette, Issue 19.2
It’s here! It’s here!
Click here to download your copy of the latest Dolphin Gazette. Updates on our analyses and pending scientific papers are just a small part of this issue.
The day was looking stormy…
Tuesday was a busy day!! Soon after breakfast, we headed to Radio Beach for UNBSJ’s annual beach clean-up. We were grateful for this opportunity to give back to the island that has been so welcoming (and, unfortunately, on which we are leaving lots of trash). We collected a lot of garbage, separating what little can be recycled here. Back inside, we brought our week full circle with a discussion on ecotourism.
Bye UNBSJ!
On Wednesday we all rose early as usual. The UNBSJ students packed up their things and we all had our final breakfast together. The water taxi came to the Sea Crest Hotel at 9:30 AM to take the students to the airport. They were unfortunately delayed at the airport for a few hours but they did arrive safely in Miami. Kathleen was even waiting to greet them upon their arrival in the US! They had been hearing about Dr.
DCP’s 2015 Bimini Video
DCP is pleased to share with you our breathtaking new video showcasing our research at Bimini, The Bahamas. Produced by Terramar Productions, our 2015 Bimini Video introduces you to the dolphins around Bimini, as well as the scientists studying them. Kathleen and Kel both make an appearance, as well as a number of our colleagues and collaborators (and students) and of course our Adopt-a-Wild Dolphins! DCP welcomes a number of secondary level and college level students from a variety of schools to Bimini each year.
Bottlenose! They exist!
After breakfast, we did more paper presentations: dental erosion in south Atlantic dolphins, vocalizations of dolphins off Bimini (w/ DCP data!) and characteristics of morphotype D orca whales. Next, we had a Skype presentation from Dr. Justin Gregg. He asked the question, “Are dolphins intelligent?” We learned about many different experiments, including ones that definitely do not happen anymore! After a few references this week, we all know who John Lilly is (enthusiastic nods). We found dolphins’ ability to mimic and the potential uses of their signature whistles cool.
Our search leads us to the Sapona
Our morning classroom session included paper presentations; each one of us had to find a dolphin-related scientific research paper and present it to the class in layman’s terms. Those who presented today were all on behavior: infant carrying, sighting locations & social interactions, male reproduction behavior and dolphin behavior around gill nets. After some serious sandwich making, our boat trip departed early – 11:30. We headed in the normal direction, but the rough seas had us turning back to shore for lunch. Anchored near the beach, we eat and swam a bit, before resuming our search.
Love dolphins? Love science? You've come to the right place!
Whether you’re a young student interested in learning more about dolphin biology, a college student looking for internship experiences working with dolphins, or a seasoned researcher hoping to connect with colleagues on topics of dolphin behavior, ecology, or cognition, you’ve come to the right place.
The Dolphin Communication Project charitable solicitation number ch42894, meets all requirements specified by the florida solicitation of contributions act. A copy of the official registration and financial information may be obtained from the division of consumer services by calling toll-free (800-435-7352) within the state of florida, or 850-410-3800 when calling outside the state. Registration does not imply endorsement, approval, or recommendation by the state.