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Dolphins continued
population. It’s important for multiple of multiple workshops and site visits has 2016—working with Dolphin Quest and
researchers to help compile complete been recognition that illegal fishing is collaborators from Oceanográfic Valencia,
records of the dolphins’ movements, likely responsible for the population’s Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
condition, reproductive success, and continued decline but also the development (WHOI), and Aarhus University—the
survival—data that are crucial for of a successful local river guard to find, Sarasota team was able to attach satellite-
identifying the effects of human activities confiscate, and destroy nets. As a result, linked transmitters to four bottlenose
and for guiding conservation strategies. the number of dolphins has increased dolphins and track their movements and
from a low of around 70 to more than dive patterns.
To the south, in Cambodia, Sarasota 80. Plus, the number of carcasses has
program staff have been involved in decreased. Plans are being developed The challenges encountered when
helping to save a small population of to train Cambodian researchers in trying to catch deepwater bottlenose
Irrawaddy dolphins (otherwise known conservation techniques in Sarasota. dolphins for tagging has led to a
as Mekong dolphins) in the Mekong new project for the Sarasota team. In
River. Prior to the Vietnam War, these New Challenges conjunction with Dolphin Quest and
dolphins ranged the entire length of the WHOI, they are developing a device that
river and also lived in associated lakes From rivers to open ocean will allow researchers to tag dolphins as
from the South China Sea to waterfalls environments, dolphins occupy a wide they ride the pressure wave below the bow
at the Cambodian border with Laos. range of habitats. Opportunities to study of a boat, eliminating the need to catch
During the war, intensive U.S. bombing deepwater populations of bottlenose them for tagging. The device is being
and subsequent harvesting by the Khmer dolphins living farther out from coastlines developed at WHOI and will be tested on
Rouge regime decimated the population, have been rare, but it is important to dolphins near Sarasota. This device has
leaving only a few dozen individuals in learn about them as they also face threats, the potential to revolutionize researchers’
deepwater pools in northern Cambodia. especially noise, from human activities. abilities to learn about largely unstudied
open-ocean cetaceans around the world. █
As concerns arose over the shrinking Since 2003, colleagues at Dolphin Photos taken by the Chicago Zoological Society’s
Mekong dolphin population, international Quest, one of our partners in dolphin Sarasota Dolphin Research Program under
experts—including staff from Florida— conservation, have involved Wells and National Marine Fisheries Service Scientific
were engaged to recommend conservation his team in research around Bermuda. In Research Permit No. 15543.
actions. Among the positive outcomes
College interns assist with a photo-identification survey in Sarasota Bay.
24 GATEWAYS | UNWAVERING DEDICATION TO DOLPHIN CONSERVATION
