Trip 8 (August 15th – August 23rd) 

Well, it’s mid-August and the water is about 88 degrees F, a typical summer day in the Bahamas.  It’s a reunion trip with previous Board members onboard, and a special guest, Carl Safina.  Well known for his writing and animal advocacy, Carl came out to experience the dolphins and profile our work for future writing.

We had some great behavioral encounters with bottlenose dolphins and spotted dolphins interacting and fighting.  Because of the main exodus of many of our dolphins to a second study site, interspecific interactions have not been frequently observed, so it was nice to see some real behavior in the water.

Our trip was highlighted by the solar eclipse, which we proudly embraced, with glasses of course.  In this part of the world we only had a partial eclipse, but it was awesome nevertheless.  During the eclipse, we were in the Gulf Stream so we don’t know what the dolphins do, or if they recognize the change in light, and temperature, but we did!!

Denise Herzing

Research Director, WDP

What environmental disturbance altered interspecies association and behavior patterns? Find out here. More scientific publications can be found here.