Meet the Team: Field Assistant, Liah McPherson

Growing up in the Outer Banks, Liah always had a passion for the ocean, but in particular, dolphins. Clearly driven from a young age, she began volunteering with the Outer Banks Center for Dolphin Research in middle school. “My parents have always been supportive of my passion and saved many

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Careers in Ocean Science: Education Specialist, Hannah MacDonald

Careers in Ocean Science: Education Specialist, Hannah MacDonald Introduction:  At the age of 20, Hannah MacDonald was the youngest woman in a team of women that dove a historic site in each one of the five great lakes in 24 hours. “This feat was to empower women divers and bring

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What is Synchrony and Why Does it Matter?

In the wild, the ability for social animals to work together is crucial for survival. And as it turns out, in spotted dolphins, not only do they work together but they also synchronize their behaviors. In the Bahamas, spotted dolphins and bottlenose dolphins both live on the shallow sandbanks. While

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QandA with Biologist Cassie Volker

Hi everyone! We hope you enjoyed our LIVE Facebook Question and Answer session with our biologist Cassie Volker. We decided to turn that session into a blog, as a permanent resource. As a refresher, the Wild Dolphin Project was started by Dr. Denise Herzing in 1985. Along with her colleagues,

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More than Spotted Dolphins…

False killer whales, sperm whales, pilot whales, offshore bottlenose dolphins, Risso’s dolphins —these are just a few of the amazing marine mammals we’ve seen when crossing from Florida to the Bahamas to research the resident dolphins in our study site. Surprisingly, however, little is known about mammals in this region

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Offshore and Nearshore Bottlenose Dolphins – What’s the Difference?

In the Bahamas, we study two species dolphins at our field site: the Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenalla frontalis) and the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). These are both members of the family Delphinidae, the oceanic dolphins.  We spend a lot of our time focusing on the spotteds, but in this

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