Finding a Fifth Fin - Continued
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Dolphins in Our Own Back Yard?
Why has Brookfield Zoo been working on dolphin research? Besides the fact that the zoo built the first inland Dolphinarium in the United States, we also know that what we do in Chicagoland affects dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico. Pollutants and chemicals that we dispose of in the Midwest end up in our creeks and rivers, which get flushed into the Mississippi River, and eventually make their way into the Gulf, which is home to dolphins galore. The same thing happens with fishing line and tackle, which eventually floats down river where it can snag and entangle marine life. Want to help protect these animals? Here is a short list of things that you can do here in the Midwest and on vacation in places where dolphins live:

• Never discard fishing line in the water! Modern fishing tackle does not break down in water and poses an incredible danger to animals in the water that may become tangled. Dr. Wells looks squeamish whenever he talks about the dolphin calf he saw with a dorsal fin nearly severed by fishing line.

• Only discard pollutants like paint and chemicals through appropriate sites. Worsened by Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf of Mexico has been inundated with tainted runoff from cities and damaged industrial sites---don’t make this problem worse by throwing toxins into the garbage, where they will end up in our water table.
  
  
• Try not to fish in front of dolphins. Once they begin to associate boats with a meal (from people feeding them discarded fish), dolphins can get too close to marine traffic and cause collisions, or get tangled in fishing gear. This is also true for turtles, fish, birds, and manatees too.

Besides the dolphins in Sarasota Bay, Dr. Wells’ research helps both the dolphins at Brookfield Zoo, and other populations around the world. To better understand how information gleaned from Wells’ work helps Brookfield Zoo manage the animals in Seven Seas---which in turn helps generates data that Dr. Wells can apply in his efforts to protect wild dolphin populations---take a look at the zoo's Dolphins in Depth interactive and www.sarasotadolphin.org.

Dolphins Around the World
Being the longest-running dolphin program on the planet has made Dr. Wells’ conservation program pretty notorious! His staff is known in scientific communities for having developed some of the leading technology for observation, data collection, photo identification, and baseline information gathering on marine mammals. International groups have approached Dr. Wells to travel globally to teach his techniques so that they can be put to use to help other dolphin communities. His teaching efforts are helping to spawn new, like-minded research programs in Brazil (studying the tucuxi dolphin along the coast), China (following the baiji or Yangtze River dolphin), Colombia, and Argentina (tagging and tracking Franciscana dolphins).

These new programs have helped to cement the idea with Dr. Wells that dolphins, with more than 30 species worldwide, are a very diverse group of animals. In some places, he sees similar patterns of residency to the dolphins he studies in Florida---but in other places, the behaviors are completely different. In southern Brazil, the tucuxi populations seem to stick to specific places in multigenerational groups. In Argentina, prior to work conducted by Wells and Argentine colleague Pablo Bordino, Franciscanas were considered wanderers who moved up and down the coast. Preliminary findings from radio-tracking by Bordino, Wells and colleagues is now showing that at least some have much more localized ranges.

Besides Sarasota, Dr. Wells is actively collaborating with Dolphin Quest at a study site near the island of Bermuda in the Atlantic. These dolphins illustrate the differences within Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. The Bermudan dolphins live in deeper water, dive much deeper (to about 1,000 meters) and wander around a much wider area (about 250 kilometers). There has been much debate in some circles about how many species of bottlenose dolphins exist. There is agreement that one form lives near shore, and another lives offshore. The Sarasota and Bermuda populations lend some credence to this because not only are their behaviors different, but there are actual physical differences in size and proportions, genetics, hemoglobin levels, and fin shapes between the two groups.

Run with Randy!
If you are interested in the work of Dr. Wells and his associates, you can join them! Earthwatch Institute offers a special program that allows people to go out into Sarasota Bay with a Chicago Zoological Society Dolphin Conservation Program boat and researcher to help gather information on these dandy dolphins. More information is available on the Earthwatch Web site.

Not quite ready for the real thing? You can take a virtual tour of Sarasota Bay with Dr. Wells in the Seven Seas Dolphin Research Boat Theater which includes an interactive high-definition video presentation of a typical observation session on a real boat!