Second full day of data collection and observations Our morning presented a trainer-contact session during which Binti and April learned to time and document all contacts (touches/rubs) between a trainer and dolphin (during 5 min scans). One person watches a dolphin/trainer pair and dictates contacts to the recorder. The other times them and another records the contacts. Robin and Kathleen do this as a pair.
And first delve into data documentation During this week, Joane, April, Dave, David, Lois, Binti will be helping with our field reports as well as their normal duties of data collection, analyses, and general observation-making. Next are their thoughts on the dolphins and our research:
The dolphins are cooperative, graceful and want to play with us. They accepted us in their environment and let us swim among them. It was an awesome experience! Like being in another world. Words seem to have failed all of our volunteers. They have a glassy-eyed look ...
Meeting the dolphins and Kathleen's array Of course, the first order of business (after breakfast) was to meet the dolphins at Bailey's Key. There are 16 dolphins. We went to the key for the morning session and introduced all our volunteer researchers (Joane, Binti, Lois, April, David, Dave) to the data forms. The competition for attention was fierce - the dolphins won over Kathleen & Robin. (But, we reviewed the forms later without dolphin commentary.)
After the dolphins, we took the MVA3 out for everyone to try.