Abstract
In 1970, wild dolphin catch-release studies were first conducted in Sarasota Bay, Florida.1 These initial efforts were focused on the tagging and tracking of wild dolphins to understand their movements and migratory patterns. A decade later, the project evolved to include veterinary examinations in order to evaluate individual animal and population health. The incorporation of veterinary techniques and health exams proved valuable, and in the early 1990s, health assessment techniques were applied for the purpose of understanding an unusual marine mammal mortality event in Matagorda Bay, Texas.2 Since then, health assessment studies of wild dolphins have become an essential part of long-term population health monitoring; investigations of marine-mammal die-offs; and natural resource damage assessments aimed at understanding the adverse impacts of environmental disasters (e.g., oil spills) on marine mammals.3-6 These studies have greatly benefited from the advances in bottlenose dolphin health diagnostics and treatments developed for animals in human care. This presentation will provide a historical overview of capture-release health assessments of nearshore and coastal bottlenose dolphins, with a description of the advances in techniques and diagnostics over time. Additionally, more recent efforts to apply these techniques to the health evaluations of at-risk, threatened, and endangered cetacean species will be discussed.
*Presenting author
Literature Cited
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