2011 Sarasota Bay dolphin community status
Again in 2011, for a second year, the story continues to be calves, calves and more calves.
Annie surfacing with her third calf, less than two months old at the time. This calf is the great-great-grand-calf of Cathy (age 45), who is still alive and observed in Sarasota Bay year round. Can you imagine being a great-great-grand parent at only 45 years old?
We have followed up last summer’s 17 new babies with a very respectable eight newborns in 2011.
It has been a decade since so many calves have been born into the population over only two years.
2011 moms included three first time mothers (F165, Holly, and F199) as well as three well experienced mothers. FB25, Moonfin Look-a-like, and Tramp gave birth to their 8th, 7th, and 5th calves, respectively. In addition, Annie gave birth to her third calf this year, another in one of the two lineages we have studied across five generations. Is this calf a girl, who seven years from now will give birth to the great-great-great-grand-calf of Cathy? Only time will tell.
While it is too soon to know the long-term fates of these little guys and gals, we are happy to report that 21 of the 25 have survived to date.
Nicklo (age 61, background) and Black Tip Double Dip (age 58, foreground) surface together as they head through Big Pass, probably on their way to feed in the seagrass meadow behind Mote Marine Laboratory.
The 2010 calves of FB55 and Trisha, as well as the 2011 first calf of F199 (Wanda’s 2002 calf) have not been observed with their mothers for some time and are assumed gone.
Before Trisha’s calf disappeared, it was seen with fishing line on its right tail fluke. We were successful in removing some of it with a long-handled cutting tool; the small amount of line remaining likely did not play a significant role in the calf’s disappearance. Unfortunately, the 2010 calf of FB79 (C797) was entangled much more severely in fishing line from at least five different entanglements. In spite of our disentanglement efforts, he did not survive.
The majority of our elderly animals have survived another year, with the exception of FB36 who died this fall at age 39.
Number of identifiable dolphins using Sarasota Bay on a regular basis; 96% of dolphins seen in the bay are identifiable.
The oldest male observed this year was FB28 (age 46), but he is a youngster compared to female Nicklo, who remains our oldest resident at 61 years young. She is often accompanied by Black Tip Double Dip (age 58), and the two are frequently seen just behind Mote Lab’s docks chasing fish over the seagrass meadow before whacking them out of the water with their tail flukes.
They are occasionally joined by another of the oldest females, Squiggy (age 55). In combination, the large number of successful calves and the small number of mortalities has the resident Sarasota Bay dolphin community at about 160 individuals, on a positive trajectory, moving in the direction of abundance levels reached at the turn of the century.
We have been able to continue our year-round monthly monitoring of the Sarasota bottlenose dolphin community thanks largely to support from the Batchelor Foundation, the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, and private donations, as well as the continued dedication of our core volunteers and undergraduate interns.
Thanks to these efforts, this community remains one of the most thoroughly studied free-ranging dolphin populations in the world.
