Bottlenose dolphins have nicks, notches, and scars along their dorsal fins that allow them to be identified and tracked through time. I am interested in using these marks and photographic-identification techniques along with mark-recapture techniques to study the distribution and abundance of bottlenose dolphin populations.
I recently used these methods to study the bottlenose dolphin population inhabiting the coastal and near-shore waters stretching from St. Vincent Sound to Alligator Harbor along the northern Gulf coast of Florida as part of my masters thesis at Florida State University. This work provides baseline data regarding bottlenose dolphins in this region.
