July

Trip 3: The Usual Suspects

Trip 3 of the season brought us a little bit of everything – dolphin encounters, beautiful snorkeling, and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. After a bit of a wait, we finally had our first encounters with the spotted dolphins on Little Bahama Bank (LBB), and the payoff was well worth the patience. We were working on deploying the Hydromoth, our passive acoustic monitoring device, when a group of spotted dolphins approached the bow. Among them were several individuals who were new to us last season. These guys quickly turned into our usual suspects and we saw this group hanging out together quite often. It’s always exciting to reconnect with familiar faces and begin gathering new data on their associations, and behavior patterns. 

As we transitioned to Grand Bahama Bank (GBB), the sightings continued! We encountered both bottlenose and spotted dolphins, including several individuals we hadn’t seen in years. One especially remarkable encounter started with a group of bottlenose dolphins foraging at the surface. We took our usual surface shots and as we wrapped up that documentation, we noticed another group in the distance. As we approached, we were stunned to find over 25 spotted dolphins engaged in cooperative hunting, corralling a school of fish into a big bait ball.

We entered the water and were immediately immersed in a soundscape of clicks, buzzes, and whistles as the dolphins worked together to trap and catch their prey. This level of coordinated group behavior and acoustic activity is rarely seen so vividly and it gave us valuable insight into the complex social dynamics and communication of these animals and the roles they play in hunting. Among the group were several well-known individuals, including Oreo, Sycamore, and Nassau, along with some we hadn’t seen in a while like Mutiny, Lord, and Marble. Seeing these guys is a reminder that even if we don’t encounter certain individuals every season, they could still be out there thriving in their environment. 

The dolphins never fail to surprise and inspire us, and we’re looking forward to what the rest of the season will bring!

July Trip 4: A Study in Spots

Trip 4 brought our colleagues from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) aboard to continue field testing our Cetacean Hearing Augmentation Telemetry system (CHAT). We are so lucky to collaborate so closely with the brilliant minds developing this technology, and it adds an entirely new layer of insight and innovation to our time in the field. We like to joke that having Georgia Tech on board is just like having internet access, they are a wealth of information at our fingertips!

This trip had us channeling our inner Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson! Many of the dolphins we saw on this trip are the same individuals we first observed last year, and we’ve been combing through our decades of photo ID data to confirm matches. On this trip we made two major breakthroughs:

Back in 2018, we observed a young male two-tone on LBB for the first time and gave him the placeholder name “D19”. We thought he was lost until we realized “Onyx”, a mottled male first seen and nicknamed last year, is actually that same two-tone now grown into a young adult. His spots have changed quite a bit since we first saw him, but our persistence paid off and now we can officially close this case.

Our second match was between C40, another mystery dolphin from several years ago, and U28, a fused dolphin documented last year. This one was a very tricky match because of how much time had passed between our comparison photos, but we were able to confirm a match and can now move forward in the naming process. 

Of course, field work isn’t just about science. It’s also about living at sea and on Stenella we believe that means eating well. Not every research vessel gets a dedicated cook, and we feel incredibly lucky to have amazing meals prepared right on board. This trip, our first mate caught a few beautiful Cero mackerel, and Dr. Herzing herself stepped into the galley to whip up her famous sushi, poke bowls, and (of course) wasabi surprise. Safe to say, nobody went hungry!

All in all, July Trip 4 was one for the books! We left with new IDs, promising data for CHAT, and a few more mysteries to keep us searching. 

Until next time!