2023 Trip 7
Trip 7: the final trip of the 2023 season! We were thrilled to be back out in the Bahamas for the last trip of the summer, and even more excited to have our colleague Dr. Cindy Elliser of PacMam joining us! It has been over 10 years since she’s been
Animal Behavior: interspecies versus intraspecific interactions
In the Bahamas, the Wild Dolphin Project led by Dr. Denise Herzing, studies both the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and the Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis), who coexist on the sandbank. This means they are sympatric — occurring within the same geographic range. While the two species eat
6 Awesome Facts About Spotted Dolphins in the Bahamas
Denise Herzing, Ph.D., founder and director of the Wild Dolphin Project, has been studying Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) in the Bahamas since 1985. Since that time, she’s learned a lot about their social behavior, communication, feeding behavior, ecology, and social structure. Dolphins are mammals, which means they breathe air
Plastic is Bad. Real Bad.
In the Bahamas, spotted dolphins play with sargassum seaweed. They play games of keep away and chase, passing the seaweed effortlessly from their rostrum, to pectoral fin to fluke. But sadly, they also play with plastic — we witness it. So far this summer, we’ve already observed dolphins playing with
2020 Field Season: Trip 2
Trip #2 & maybe our last for the 2020 Field Season… The 2020 Field Season is proving to be an interesting and frustrating one. Due to delayed COVID-19 test results, this last trip started four days late and on top of that we also had rough seas for the remainder
Feeding Frenzy
Editor’s Note: This blog originally followed Thanksgiving, but we had a website crash and lost the entire blog, which had to be rewritten! So, if you missed it the first time…here it is again. We’re talking about FEEDING — an important part of survival! More specifically, we’re talking about dolphin
Fall is baby season for dolphins!
All summer long we observe wild dolphins in the Bahamas — and some of those dolphins are pregnant. Based on long-term observation of individuals, Denise Herzing, founder and research director of the Wild Dolphin Project, determined that female Atlantic spotted dolphins have two peak calving seasons in early spring and
Meet Our New Team Member!
Over the years, many budding biologists have gained research experience and training as graduate students working with Dr. Denise Herzing, the Wild Dolphin Project’s founder and director. For instance, Dr. Cindy Elliser was a PhD student with Denise and is now the research director at Pacific Mammal Research, a scientific
Lost Lamda
Lost Lamda: A Stranded Dolphin in the Bahamas LAMDA’S HISTORY We first observed Lamda in 2013 as a juvenile in the speckled age class (approximately 4-8 years old) and frequently saw him every field season since then for a total of 20 times. In 2015, he moved to the mottled
2018 Field Season: Trip 9
Trip 9 By: Cassie Volker, Research Assistant I can’t believe I am writing the last blog entry for the 2018 field season, man it flew by! But we couldn’t have had a better way to end the season. Trip 9 started out with a few quick encounters with some Bimini