USCB Adopt-a-Dolphin

Hello Everyone,
We hope everyone is having a wonderful 2017. We have officially changed our logo and name to "LOWCOUNTRY DOLPHIN CONSERVATION". Please consider giving a gift and supporting our research by filling out the attached form. In return, you will Adopt-A-Dolphin and we will send you a sticker and photo of your dolphin.

You can follow our research on our Lab's page:
https://www.facebook.com/MarineNeuroLabAtUSCB/

Hello everyone,
Please visit our lab page to keep track of our research!!! Thanks for all your support. https://www.facebook.com/MarineNeuroLabAtUSCB/

Marine Sensory and Neurobiology Lab at USCB Our lab focuses research on soundscape ecology, environmental monitoring, and fish and marine mammals

Happy New Year followers! In an effort to make things neater we are consolidating our Adopt-a-Dolphin page into our lab page. We will no longer be posting updates on this page, so be sure to follow the Marine Sensory and Neurobiology Lab at USCB page so that you can stay up to date on all of our findings in the lab and postings regarding our beloved May River dolphins. Thanks for keeping up with us and be sure to check out the new page!

It was a hazy day out on the May when we went on one of our bi-monthly full dolphin surveys. This was the first survey we have been able to take since Hurricane Matthew swept through the lowcountry. We saw 17 dolphins total, with 3 Mother/Calf pairs. This is a pretty good survey for this late in the season because most of the transient population is gone for the winter. We have several dolphins in our catalog who aren't named, if you want to name one or just adopt a celebrity that shows up on our page often, please contact USCB Adopt-a-Dolphin! These adoption certificates make great Christmas presents for the dolphin-lover in your family or friend group. Thanks for keeping up with us! Check back later for more updates.

Dolphin Survey 11/12/2016
Unfortunately this past Saturday we had a tour but did not see any dolphins! This is not unusual for this time of year, we had a tour last year where we did not see any dolphins either. We were lucky enough to see large groups of double crested cormorants who were migrating south for the winter! Again, a huge thank you to all of our supporters and to those of you who went on this tour with us. Your patience and enthusiasm despite adverse conditions was much appreciated! Check back with us soon for more updates.

Today was our first day back on the water after a very eventful month. Hurricane Matthew unfortunately delayed our surveys and it took us a while to get back on the May to check on the dolphins. We had a great sighting this day with ten individuals spotted! Several were already in our catalog, which was to be expected since it should be mainly the residential population that is inhabiting the May's waters. However, there were a couple of individuals who we did not have in the catalog, so it was an exciting day for sure! Thank you so much to the lovely ladies to accompanied us on our trip and thank you to all of our followers who keep up with our posts! We hope that everyone is recovering well from the hurricane and doing well.
We have several dolphins that are still up for adoption. If you are interested in adopting one of our dolphins, please don't hesitate to contact us through this page or through our email ([email protected]).

Check out one of our recent surveys with Spartina!

This gloomy day was made better by the 16 dolphins our tour was fortunate enough to witness traveling through the May River. We were able to identify six dolphins out of the sixteen and all of them were already logged in our catalog: Laylo, Gale, Dragon, Cher, Moby, and Charlotte. If you're interested in adopting one of these dolphins, you can contact the lab through the USCB Adopt-a-Dolphin page. Thank you so much to our guests who participated in the tour with us today and to all of you who follow our posts! Check back next week for some more photos and updates on the tours.

A week ago our lab completed our second September survey. Although it wasn't as exciting as our first September survey, we still saw 40 dolphins! We believe this influx of animals is because the coastal migratory stock is stopping in for some refreshments before continuing on their trek. We saw 6 total mother calf pairs in this survey, and from all the photos were able to identify Sunny, Amelia, Nike, Opal, Gale, Chomper, Spanky, September, Buster, Wedge, Stewart, Warny, Bradshaw, Kiddo, and Dredge. We still have several animals from these past sightings without names, so please let us know if you'd like to adopt an animal and give it a name! Happy fall!

Here are a couple of videos from our exciting survey on 9/08/16! In this sighting we saw 10 different dolphins and were able to get a video of some of them. Check back later for more updates!

We conducted a full survey last Thursday and had one of the best surveys to date! 55 dolphins were spotted throughout the entirety of the May River. They were playful and participatory; many came close to the boat (a sighting that we would mark as CTB for Close To Boat) and allowed us to get great pictures of their dorsal fins for our photo ID catalog. Because of that and the calm waters we were able to successfully photograph and ID 26 dolphins. 17 of these dolphins were already in the catalog, but we got to add 9 new ones! It was a very exciting day for the lab and we hope that you enjoy these pictures and videos as much as we do.

Today was one of the fun occasions where we had the opportunity to complete one of our full surveys of the May River. We were lucky to see many dolphins out and about, enjoying the unusually low tide to feed and travel. Some of the dolphins we spotted included Lucky and her calf, Bo, as well as Sunny. If you are interested in adopting one of these dolphins, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us and we will match you with one from our catalog! Thanks for following and be sure to check back for more updates.

On Friday, July 8th, our lab completed our second July dolphin survey. We counted 22 individuals and were able to identify 11 of them using our computer software. Those identified included Chomper, Duddles, Mabel, Joey, Oliver, Onyx and her calf, Cher, Frodo, Roxy, and Geode. One of the animals has some white discoloration on its dorsal fin which we have been keeping track of over the years via photographs. These white discolorations are thought to be associated with periods of stress in the animal or potential exposure to pollutants such as heavy metals and organochlorines. Our dolphin surveys help us keep an eye on this animal for abnormal behavior to try to determine its overall health status. All in all it was another successful day out on the May River and we look forward to our next survey!