We had two very productive weeks at Anthony’s Key Resort and the Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences from 24 May – 7 June! The first week was an ecotour with two families, Bill, Manon, and me, and the second was a field course with CSU. The field course had 9 students, Shane, Don (DCP board member), Manon, and me. A good group of people on both weeks: very engaged, lots of questions, and everyone up EARLY to help with AM data collection.
The dolphins were similarly engaged! You can see Trixie below taking a VERY close look at the MVA face plate! Rocky (feature) had his own style to check out the MVA!
We collected underwater video data during 13 early morning sessions with three cameras – the MVA camera, a front-facing GoPro, and a back-facing GoPro. This gave us about 6.5 hours in sessions that yielded a bit less than 20 hours of video to review for dolphin behavior, vocals, and interactions. Having the wider field of view from the GoPro is helpful to confirm more IDs on screen and the back-facing GoPro lets us confirm when dolphins are circling the MVA (i.e., being in and out of view swiftly!).
We pulled some photos to update our ID sheets – Georgie has a distinct notch in her fluke! Everyone looks good! We will spent the next several months analyzing video but look forward to October and January when we return to Roatan. Have a great summer!
Cheers
Kathleen & Manon
P.S. Both Baloo and Hazel were happy to see us when we returned, and Hazel PROMPTLY destroyed the lovely stuffed bird we brought home to her!
