Dolphins

Let’s All Focus our Love of Whales and Dolphins on Protecting Them in the Wild…Together

The heart-tugging Sea of Shadows documentary details the compassionate effort to save the world’s most endangered marine mammal: vaquita porpoises. Found only in Mexican waters, the population of this tiny animal is dwindling sharply as they die in illegal gillnets. People volunteered their time and donated funds to the project because they care.

Historically considered voracious and merciless predators, the shooting of killer whales was once accepted and even encouraged by governments. No one cared then. But they care now.

The public’s love and will to protect marine mammals would not be what it is today if not for the contributions and shared goals of marine parks. Yet, some groups are attempting to take advantage of that love to compel parks and aquariums to give up the whales and dolphins in their facilities, most of which were born there and would not survive in the wild.

They argue that animals in parks and aquariums don’t live as long as those in the wild. Wrong. Check the research. They argue that habitats are too noisy. Wrong. Check the research. They allege that dolphins in interactive programs are forced to participate. Wrong. They argue that the animals in these programs are stressed. Wrong. Check the research. After these programs end, the dolphins’ play behaviors increase and they voluntarily continue to interact with visitors. Check the research.

For many species, the “wild” has become an increasingly life-threatening place. Scientists frequently underscore how devastating changes to our oceans are happening faster and with greater severity. Whales and dolphins are suffering from deadly pollution, fishing gear entanglement, underwater noise, boat strikes, oil spills, rising ocean temperatures, ingesting plastic debris, and lack of food. These animals need our help, evidenced by the growing number of species and populations that are now endangered or threatened.

The more people learn about these animals, the more they care about them and the need to conserve them in the wild. The more they care about the environment. Without these animals in parks and aquariums, gone will be numbers of educators who present programs daily that illustrate how human activities impact the health of whales, dolphins, and their ocean habitats and inspire life-changing attitudes and values in those they teach.

Gone will be the veterinarians and caregivers with exhaustive knowledge of the animals’ physiology, cognition, behavior, and reproduction; knowledge important to understanding and overcoming the challenges facing whales and dolphins in the wild.

Conservation research critical to ensuring the health of wild marine mammal populations and informing government policies will be greatly impeded. Gone will be partnerships with universities and research organizations whose studies rely on whales and dolphins in parks and aquariums. These studies include testing and calibrating techniques and equipment aimed at saving wild populations. Scientists use indispensable, baseline parameters and knowledge gained from these animals when evaluating the health of marine mammal populations in the wild. Decades of marine mammal research, which has led to scientific advances and the adoption of life-saving human medical technologies, will come to an end.

Gone will be facilities that respond to marine mammals stranded on our beaches, nurse them back to health and return them to our oceans, or provide a welcoming home to those unable to survive in the wild. Gone will be the veterinarians and caregivers who save those animals’ lives. A survey by the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums indicates that, over a five-year period, its member facilities responded to almost 6,000 marine mammal strandings, 5,000 sea turtle strandings, and over 6,000 bird strandings. Alliance members contributed over $16.6 million to these humane efforts, which involved more than 260,000 volunteer hours.

Don’t be misled by your love for these animals. Don’t let your love wrongly jeopardize the whales and dolphins in human care that helped motivate that love.

Yes, we all love whales and dolphins. None more than the caregivers in parks and aquariums who strive daily to ensure and improve their health and welfare. Nothing can replace the impact of seeing these magnificent animals up close. We learn to love them by watching, hearing, and learning about them, and that love promotes a greater appreciation for wildlife conservation efforts so essential to protecting them in our oceans.

Never before have the threats to marine life in our oceans been so staggering. Now is the time to work together to ensure that whales, dolphins, and their habitats survive. Together, we can make a significant difference.

Marilee Menard

Executive Director, Retired

Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums

Conservation

NOAA Offers Reward For Information About A Recent Dolphin Spearing

Featured Image: The Epoch Times

In May, a dolphin was found dead in the waters near the upper Captiva Island. The body of the dolphin had been badly battered but spear marks were easily identified. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it is illegal to harass a dolphin and harming the animal in any way is expressly forbidden.

The dolphin has a six inch gash near its eye that had clotted blood. The body was taken in for a necropsy to try to discern the extent of its injuries. The results showed that the dolphin was impaled in its head with a spear or a spearlike object.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, at least 26 dolphins have been victims of violence in the Gulf of Mexico since 2002. Most of these dolphins were impaled in some way or shot by a gun. This particular dolphin was last seen swimming around fishing boats begging for food scraps. Unfortunately, when dolphins are fed by humans their behaviors change for the worse. For this reason, it is illegal to feed wild dolphins.

If you have any information about the details surrounding the death of this dolphin, please report it to NOAA. There is a $38,000 reward for information that leads to the capture of the perpetrator. You can call the NOAA enforcement hotline at 1-800-853-1964.

Conservation

Gulf Coast Reports A Massive Spike in Dolphin Deaths this Year

Since February, over 200 bottlenose dolphins have been found dead on beaches along the Gulf of Mexico. The spike in strandings has the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration worried because the death toll is over 3 times the normal amount of dolphin deaths in a year.

Dr. Erin Fougere, with NOAA, says, “we are just starting our investigation now. We are concerned about the very low salinity that the northern Gulf is experiencing just due to the massive flooding that’s occurred over this past winter. It’s the wettest winter in the Mississippi Valley in the past 124 years.”

Bottlenose dolphins are not just dying, they are also showing up with skin lesions, indicating a problem in the water. Freshwater can harm bottlenose dolphins with prolonged exposure. Plus, these animals are still recovering from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

Fougere says, “they do still have those health issues and any additional stressor or environmental change could potentially, you know, tip them over the edge which might be what we’re seeing here.We always say they’re like canary in the coal mines, so things that are impacting dolphins are things that could ultimately impact humans. They’re coastal residents. They live close to the beaches and the shore similar to the way humans do so it’s always worth monitoring what’s going on with them.”

Dolphins

Stranded Dolphins Rescued By Beachgoers Now At SeaWorld Orlando For Rehabilitation

Featured Image: Miami Herald

When vacationers and local residents in the Florida Keys caught sight of two dolphins stranded in shallow water, they rushed to help. The dolphins, discovered near the Fiesta Key RV Resort, were struggling for breath when rescuers got to them. A collective effort was made to right the animals and get them to deeper water, however, people quickly noticed that even in deeper water the dolphins could not stay upright without assistance.

After two unsuccessful release attempts, The National Marine Fisheries Service called in the SeaWorld Rescue Team to transport the dolphins to the SeaWorld Orlando facilities to be rehabilitated.

According to the rescue organization, Dolphins Plus Marine Mammal Responder, SeaWorld is the only place in Florida capable of handling dolphin rehabilitation. The nonprofit’s president, Nancy Cooper, stated, “If it wasn’t for SeaWorld, these animals would have been euthanized”.

Thanks to the quick action of bystanders, the story has a happy ending. The dolphins arrived at SeaWorld Orlando and are already able to swim without assistance. The SeaWorld Rescue Team will continue to monitor and treat the animals until they are ready to be released back into the wild.

Paleontologists Found The Fossil Of A Walking Whale In Peru

Featured Image: Geology

Almost 50 million years ago, whales and dolphins as we know them today did not exist. Instead, their ancestors were busy walking around on solid ground around the continent of Asia. Eventually, these mammals would make the transition from land to water, but newly found fossils help shed some light on that.

The fossil found was around .6 miles inland from Peru’s Pacific Coast. It had front and back legs with potentially webbed feet to carry it around on land. The anatomy of the fossil indicated that the creature could both walk and swim.

According to Oliver Lambert, the lead author at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, “Part of the tail’s vertebrae showed similarities with that of present-day semi-aquatic mammals like otters. This would, therefore, have been an animal that would have started to make growing use of its tail to swim, which differentiates it from older cetaceans in India and Pakistan. This is the most complete specimen ever found for a four-legged whale outside of India and Pakistan.”

The fossil does not give any definitive answers to paleontologists. Jokingly, they admitted to having enough work for the next 50 years. Hopefully, these fossil clues will be able to tell the story of how whales came to be.

Learn more here.

Dolphins

Heartbreaking Video Shows Dolphin Mourning The Death Of Her Calf

Featured Image: Orlando Weekly

Earlier this month, a mother dolphin was spotted pushing her dead calf around near the Indian Shores in Pinellas County.

The heartbreaking video was captured by See Through Canoe and shared on their social channels. The video shows the grieving mother visibly upset by the death of her calf.

Mother #dolphin not ready to let go of her dead calf and pushing it through the intracoastal waterway.
It’s hard to say for sure without examination, but the calf may have been hit by a boat. Please don’t assume that because #dolphins are fast that you won’t hit them. #sad pic.twitter.com/Le2MAwvPIB

— See Through Canoe (@SeeThroughCanoe) June 3, 2019

According See Through Canoe, a company that provides canoe tours in the area, the calf may have been hit by a boat. However, the cause of death is still uncertain.

It is a difficult sight to see, but it does provide insight into the emotions of dolphins. Last summer, a killer whale of the southern resident pod was spotted carrying around her own dead calf for over two weeks. A 2018 study showed that dolphins typically surround their dead for hours or days after death on a regular basis, so this behavior is not necessarily uncommon.

It is hoped that the mother can recover emotionally from this experience and rejoin her pod without any problems. Sometimes, these grieving mothers refuse to eat and end up passing away as well. Researchers in the area will continue to monitor the situation for days to come.

New Study Says One Million Animal Species In Danger Of Extinction

Featured Image Credit: Dolphin Quest

According to a newly released study by the United Nations, one million animal species are in danger of becoming extinct. Their report on biodiversity revealed that extinction is looming over countless species of plants and animals, including 1/3 of all marine mammal, shark, and fish species.

“The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture,” said IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide,” as stated in the report.

Alarmingly, this is the highest number we’ve ever had in human history. Dolphins, whales, and many other species that live in modern zoos are thriving, while marine mammals in the wild are suffering and dying every single day at the hands of human activities, malnutrition, climate change, pollution, ship strikes, and abandoned fishing gear entanglement.

Shortly after the report came out, eight scientists from Duke University and The University of Michigan headed to Dolphin Quest Oahu to conduct a groundbreaking study that will strive to preserve and protect dolphin species in the wild. They plan to do so by developing conservation tools to more accurately assess the impacts of natural and human disturbance on marine mammals in the wild, according to a press release from Dolphin Quest.

Dolphin voluntarily breathes into the spirometer while scientists analyze the exhaled gases in real-time Image Credit: Dolphin Quest

“One of the 8 projects that we are collaborating with Dolphin Quest on this month is developing a tool to estimate the calories dolphins burn while evading boats,” says Austin Allen, Duke University Ph.D. candidate. “In June, we will be able to apply the techniques we are developing at Dolphin Quest to a wild dolphin population off the coast of Florida. In the future, this technology could be used to quantify the energetic impacts of boats on Hawaiian spinner dolphins.”

By figuring out how many calories dolphins burn at different swimming speeds, scientists will be able to estimate how many calories dolphins expend when disturbed by boats and how this affects population level parameters such as survival and reproduction rates. Due to decreasing fish populations, which is making it harder for wild dolphins to find a sufficient meal, the study of these energetic expenditures is increasingly important.

To read more about Dolphin Quest’s study, read the full press release here.

For a list of Dolphin Quest’s current scientific studies, click here.

Dolphins

Recent Study Reveals Dolphins In U.S. Aquariums And Zoos Live As Long As Or Longer Than Dolphins In The Wild

A recent study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science revealed that bottlenose dolphins living in U.S. aquariums and zoos live just as long as, or longer than, dolphins in the wild.

Researchers analyzed close to 40 years of data from the Marine Mammal Inventory Report (MMIR), a U.S. government source, along with previous studies of three different wild populations of dolphins to compare the current median life expectancy of bottlenose dolphins with that of dolphins in the wild.

According to the MMIR data, the median life expectancy of bottlenose dolphins in U.S. facilities is 29.2 years which is equal to or greater than wild dolphins.

Dr. Kelly Jaakkola of Dolphin Research Center and Kevin Willis of The Minnesota Zoo co-authored the peer-reviewed study. “Survival rates and life expectancies are indicators of overall health and well-being,” explained Dr. Jaakkola. “Critics of zoos and aquariums will frequently claim that dolphins in facilities don’t live as long as dolphins in the wild, in an attempt to influence public opinion and even proposed legislation. This study shows that that claim is just not true.”

Watch the video below for more information: