#offshore bottlenose dolphin

[inatungulates]

Offshore spotted dolphin Stenella attenuata attenuata

Observed by ahmeddomarr, public domain

Features for recognizing the bridled dolphins, pt. 2: pantropical spotted dolphin

The pantropical spotted dolphin, as the name suggests, is found in warm waters across the globe. In most of its range, it is a primarily offshore species, though coastal forms also exist. The name also suggests spots, but - as with the Atlantic spotted dolphin "Stenella" frontalis - this is often not the case.

Useful features of pattern for ID:

Spots are often faint, especially in offshore forms which may remain nearly or completely spotless even as full-grown adults. This individual shows fairly typical offshore spotting, where the spots are small and dark, and most concentrated on the lower sides/underside toward the tailstock. The most-heavily-spotted forms are the coastal dolphins found in the eastern tropical Pacific, where they are the only dolphins to have spots.

The overall coloration is dark grey, rather than the classic three-toned delphinid coloration of a dark cape, mid-toned thoracic patch, and pale underside. While some pantropical spotted dolphins do have lighter ventral coloration, it is not as contrasting as it is in other species and the result is still a dolphin that is overall dark grey.

The shape of the dorsal cape is probably the key identifying feature. The cape rises above the face, and then has an obvious dip down below the dorsal fin. The margins of the cape are smooth and crisp; there is no intruding blaze from the thoracic patch. Even in dolphins - like this one - that have a low-contrast coloration, the dipping shape of the slightly-darker cape is obvious.

The lip line is very pale. In this individual the pale area is not especially prominent, but in some the pale area may be quite thick and often includes a completely-pale beak tip.

Useful features of body form for ID:

Beak is fairly long and probably the stoutest of the bridled dolphins, but still thinner than a bottlenose dolphin's.

Body is long, thick, and sleek.

The elongate sleekness of the body shape is exaggerated by the relatively small size of the pectoral flippers and the dorsal fin, which is falcate, pointed, and usually somewhat "back-swept".

[nomadicflowers]

Environmental impact documents conclude that if the oil produced by Willow is burned, it would create 260 million metric tons (260,000,000,000 kg ) of carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transparent to visible light but absorbs infrared radiation, acting as a greenhouse gas. The noise, traffic, and pollution the project brings will disrupt ecosystems that Indigenous Alaskans have relied on for millennia. And the project threatens the already vulnerable caribou population — a vital resource many native communities rely on.

What happens when you drill in Alaska? Seismic vibrations can disrupt plants' growth patterns. In addition, the infrastructure from oil drilling can cause drainage issues for plants. Infrastructure, particularly road-building, can also lead to alkaline dust spreading across and settling on topsoil. Expansion of oil and gas drilling in their habitat could be extremely damaging. Direct contact with spilled oil would kill polar bears but an invisible threat could persist for years, as toxic substances lingering in ice or water may impact the entire food web of the Arctic ecosystem for years to come.

Offshore oil and gas drilling threatens our beaches, rivers, creeks, salt marshes and Sea Islands. It threatens wildlife like brown pelicans, bottlenose dolphins, sea turtles and endangered North Atlantic right whales. Offshore oil and gas drilling threatens our coastal way of life.

The production and use of oil and gas are inextricably linked to water. The extraction and processing of oil and gas consume large volumes of water, produce wastewater and may accidentally pollute water supplies. These effects have an impact on water supplies, human health and natural resources.

Is oil drilling help cause global warming?Not only that, the oil and gas industry releases massive amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. All told, the industry is responsible for 38% of all methane emissions in the United States, or 3.8% of all greenhouse gases.

Methane (CH4) is a hydrocarbon that is a primary component of natural gas. Methane is also a greenhouse gas (GHG), so its presence in the atmosphere affects the earth's temperature and climate system. Methane is emitted from a variety of anthropogenic (human-influenced) and natural sources.

Why is the Willow Project bad?

*

* The proposed project is a climate disaster in waiting.

* The analysis for the project covers only a sliver of ConocoPhillips’ plans for the area.

* New information on the risk of gas leaks has not been properly assessed.

* ConocoPhillips has played an influential role in the environmental review.

Oil destroys the insulating ability of fur-bearing mammals, such as sea otters, and the water repellency of a bird's feathers, thus exposing these creatures to the harsh elements. Without the ability to repel water and insulate from the cold water, birds and mammals will die from hypothermia.

The impact of an oil spill.

* harms animals and insects.

* prevents photosynthesis in plants.

* disrupts the food chain.

* takes a long time to recover.

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Okay I think I've made it pretty clear that there has been no independent welfare assessments on these orcas. That said, there is a lot of footage of orcas at this facility either participating actively in shows (eg. not constantly leave stations), resting and socialising.

To understand how these animals spend their day to day, we would need extensive behaviour data and time budgets. However, what I am doing while posting these videos is not "defending." I am pointing out good enrichment that is clearly working to provide mental and physical stimulation. Because I like seeing orcas in human care actively participating in enrichment.

There's a few things to address here. And that is that you are making a lot of assumptions about these animals' welfare based on hearsay and biased sources.

If you worked at a cetacean facility, you would know that a "track record" is not going to always indicate poor welfare states. There will always be management changes, staff changes, protocol changes - unless we're seeing repeated violations/welfare issues (MSQ is a great example of this), we can't assume that it's a poor welfare situation. And just because China's animal welfare standards aren't ideal, it doesn't instantly mean that the orcas are in poor welfare.

I also prefer to evaluate welfare objectively, based on what information I have in front of me. Welfare is a constantly changing state - positive and negative welfare states can occur in the same day in an animal's life. The video shows positive welfare states, that's all it's conveying here. Ideally, the balance should be overall in favour of positive welfare.

Wild Capture as a welfare variable?

Wild capture is always going to be stressful, no one can dispute that. There are many records of whales and dolphins that simply didn't survive the capture process, refused to eat and/or died on arrival. The Annual Survival Rate is lower on wild caught orcas in the SeaWorld population, compared to the captive born. This is also why smaller dolphin and porpoise species were not able to live in captivity and why the attempt to capture the Vaquita for conservation breeding purposes failed.

However, to support yourself here, you're using a white paper, written by lobbyists, that is poorly cited and heavily criticised by the scientific community. Rose's AWI is a lobby group and "The Case Against Marine Mammals" is not peer reviewed or published in a reputable journal - it's a white paper for policy makers and makes a lot of assumptions without cited evidence. For example, the chapter you referenced has citations for stress of wild capture but the page it has it's cited source on is inaccessible and also has references to the Onion (a literal fake news site), the Humane Society, media sites and incessible papers from the 80's) Citing obviously biased sources and deliberately omitting the current welfare science because it doesn't align with the narrative being presented is just bad science.

There are papers on stress response in wild capture since we still do wild capture and release to assess health of wild cetacean populations (luckily we are moving closer to non invasive assessments thanks to drone studies done in human care). However, there has yet to be any sort of recorded "trauma" from capture. That would look like chronic stress and carry markers like high cortisol ect.

Interestingly, early notes on wild capture of orcas remarked at how well they took to captivity, despite the dismal and appalling conditions they were kept in. But early sources and people like Ted Griffin also had no idea what they were doing, so I take that with a grain of salt.

As a bit of anecdotal evidence - when working in dolphin welfare, I worked with offshore bottlenose dolphins that had been wild captured in the most horrific way possible - they were from Taiji. If they carried any memory of the traumatic event, it was hard to tell. They were alive, they were healthy and they were breeding and giving birth to healthy calves (which stressed and sick animals can't do successfully). This is based in months of ongoing observations. Sadly, I couldn't go back in time to reverse what had been done to them, but I could try to make their lives as enriching and positive as possible. There were welfare issues caused by poor management but that was resolved with enrichment programs and better social and programming.

Does this mean that capture is okay or has no implications for welfare? Absolutely not. But assuming long term detrimental effects of wild capture without evidence and using that as the basis of your argument that welfare is poor in Chimelong orcas doesn't work.

Now we need to talk about your citations and sources

You seem to just be mad about marine parks in general and also China's animal welfare. That's fine, you can do that. But a lot of what you have cited is irrelevant, biased, poor research or just simply untrue.

I went through all the sources you have provided - you seem to have provided sources unrelated to orcas/cetaceans, something about Chimpanzees in commercials and just general issues with animal welfare in China. I'll focus on the published papers since the rest are from animal rights organisations and are clearly trying to push an agenda.

Chin-Ee (2017) discusses Chimelong's facility design but it has nothing to do with the new orca facility since it only opened last year (2024). The report on Chimelong has nothing to do with the orca facility either. The China Cetacean Alliance report seemed to take issue with mild rake mark coverage on the bottlenose dolphins but the apparent lack of enrichment could be a concern. It's hard to take it super seriously when the people writing the report clearly don't know what good welfare looks like.

Jiang et. al (2008) uses the Humane Society and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society as sources of poor welfare instead of ... actual welfare data. They also use this image of an orca with very mild environmental scrapes as an example of "wounds". Embarrassing.

Their paper has a very small sample size but still use their limited data to make very big assumptions about the impact of zoos on guests (also just general moral judgements on people based on preconceived biases so it's more of a philosophical paper rather than a paper with actual science being considered)

There's since been several papers to counter this 2008 paper that conclude the following:

Results indicate that learning does occur after a zoo or aquarium visit. A zoo visit has educational benefits for children, but to maximize this benefit an educational intervention should be offered.

The results prove the positive influence of a very simple environmental education program (in a zoo), even for people with a preexisting high level of connection to nature and positive attitude towards species conservation.

A survey of 1,546 visitors to 13 zoos and aquariums found that although visitors gave highest priority to entertainment aspects of the experience, they also considered the provision of conservation education to be an important aspect of a zoo or aquarium visit.

More correct answers were given post-performance compared to pre-performance (in theatrical animal shows). Family theatre can effectively deliver animal information and raise awareness of conservation efforts within a leisure setting.

Visitors formed a feeling of attachment to the dolphins in a Swim with Dolphin program, there were no negative welfare implications for the dolphins

Experiences with animals and educational elements can increase zoo visitors' motivation to take conservation action. By also using social marketing based motivating techniques and removing barriers to action, zoos can effectively promote and support conservation behavior.

There is a constantly evolving body of evidence to support the value of zoos in conservation. The zoos and aquariums that will continue to function will follow the advice in the papers cited to enhance their ability to educate the public.

Chimelong's spaceship design isn't my favourite but it does set out a lot of education and conservation pieces in an engaging and interesting way. Education and entertainment can co-exist. But my interest is in the welfare of the animals - that's the first priority. Because in my mind it doesn't matter if the conservation value is extremely high. If it's at the expense of the animals' welfare, it's not worth it.

Anyway, this is getting way too long but I can see you have gone done a lot of rabbit holes based on the sources you're using. Keep in mind that these are websites and articles designed to convince you that marine mammals shouldn't be in captivity. That means lying to you about what is actually scientific fact.

They won't talk about:

The C-Well Dolphin Welfare Evaluation - a way to objectively evaluate welfare in dolphins and the recent improvements in assessing dolphin welfare

Bottlenose dolphins in US facilities are living as long or longer than their wild counterparts

The massive improvements in survivability in marine mammals as an indicator of increasing zoological advancements

Habitat characteristics was found to have minimal effect on cetacean energy expenditure and movement

The lack of scientific evidence that sea sanctuaries are better for cetacean welfare

That captive orcas can actively adapt their vocal repertoire and their individual signatures to communicate with each other, which conflicts with the pushed narrative that captive orcas can't understand each other.

If you read any scientific papers that I've linked here, I recommend you start with Distinguishing Personal Belief from Scientific Knowledge for the Betterment of Killer Whale Welfare and Bias and Misrepresentation of Science Undermines Productive Discourse on Animal Welfare Policy: A Case Study.

5 minutes of Chimelong orca family wave machine enrichment!

This is definitely by far my favourite form of enrichment for cetaceans, along with the live fish enrichment that SeaWorld San Diego is doing at the moment.

Lots of natural behaviour on display here - surging, surfing, synchronised group swimming.

And a lot of innovation and adaptation of behaviour is very obvious too: several orcas have figured out if they they slide out and wait for the wave, it'll sweep them off the slide out, which adds a whole new dynamic to slide out play.

While we can all acknowledge that taking these orcas from the wild was unethical, it is good to see signs of positive welfare in this dynamic enrichment use.

Natural behaviours, behaviour diversity, active participation, learning and innovation, social and affiliative behaviours, physical and mental exercise - these are all incompatible with a poor welfare scenario.

When animals are in poor welfare, chronic stress has a significant effect on their brains and bodies. Stress impairs their ability to learn, to innovate and navigate social interactions. A heavily criticised paper by Marino et. al claimed that cetaceans in human care have impaired brain function due to chronic stress. However, it was poorly cited and had zero welfare data to support their hypothesis. It also just doesn't match up with what we currently observe in accredited modern facilities.

If these animals were truly suffering and stressed, we would not be seeing them learning new behaviours, we would be seeing regular refusal to participate, we would see frustration related behaviour occurring regularly and a lot more aggression and social issues.

I make a conscious effort to research and track down as much footage as I can. I have seen accusations that I cherry pick this footage but you are more than welcome to go and look at all the videos on Youtube.

[thelonelywhale]

They’re finished! Comparative illustration of the two common bottlenose dolphin ecotypes seen along the California coast - coastal (top) and offshore (bottom). This was great practice, and extremely relaxing/meditative to work on.

[lightningspam-photography]

Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops)

Taken off the coast of California in the Pacific Ocean

status: Least Concern

A dolphin racing through the boat's wake to ride the surf! If you look closely to the left of that dorsal fin slicing through the water you can vaguely see the grey shape of its friend riding beside it.

[flukesandflorida]

Offshore

For some reason I’m kinda picturing this being just offshore of Gasparilla Island.

Probably my best digital art so far! Although, I will admit that I “cheated” on one thing - I traced a reference photo to get the outline...but I added all of the shading/highlights and colors myself! Hope you guys like it!

[namu-the-orca]

The Atlantic spotted dolphin - Stenella frontalis

This is without a doubt my favourite illustration for this project so far. I love Atlantic spotted dolphins, with their sociable personality, elegant faces and beautiful colouration - and these in particular. You see, while the Common bottlenose dolphin’s coastal and oceanic populations are best known, there’s more dolphins with a similar division amongst their ranks. Spotted dolphins (both the Atlantic and Pantropical) have offshore and coastal populations as well, which vary in colour. 

In case of the Atlantic, coastal animals - like those found in The Bahamas - are most heavily spotted. Adults can gain so many spots over the years that in the end, their colour pattern is reversed. White above, black below. Illustrated however, is an oceanic-type Atlantic spotted dolphin; and they hold on to their stark white bellies. The amount of spots varies between individuals, some are quite heavily spotted, others snowy white below the sides - but never is the belly covered. The white spots are also finer than those in coastal animals, and while I painted my animal with quite a lot, some have no more than a fine dusting of white.

Exquisitely beautiful animals if you ask me, and I am immensely happy that the spotting finally turned out to my liking (painting spots is harder than it seems).

[leopardsealz]

[image ID: a 47 second video of both seabirds and common dolphins feeding. the dolphins occaisionally surface and leap. the following three photos are of the dolphins jumping. end ID]

common dolphins!!!! despite their name i see them far less than bottlenoses, as these guys are found further offshore. the birds are a mix of gannets, gulls, auks + manx shearwaters :]

[captdaveswhalewatchingsafari]

Offshore bottlenose dolphins are definitely a crew and passenger favorite!

This population of tursiops truncatus is full of powerful and energetic individuals. They are capable of propelling their entire bodies out of the water, into breaches several feet high or even head over tail flips! Its always thrilling to see them doing this on their own accord in the wild!

Photos by Naturalist Craig DeWitt

[whattheflameo]

Well now, thanks to your tags on the kuvira ask, I want to know the life stories of 31 dolphins. How much thought did you put in to the dolphins kit because I have a feeling it's a lot more than most people would

Lmao you aren’t the first person to bring this up today. God, the amount of thought that went into these dolphins. I’m pretty sure some of my friends on here wanted to drop-kick me I talked about it so much. An example: I have an entire document labeled ‘Dead’ where I was keeping track of which individuals had died and which pathologies I needed to focus on. More detail below:

The six dolphins that end up in focus, Ryo and five others, came into being way early on. I knew I needed one individual stranding and that the rest would come in at once. I didn’t want Ryo to be bottlenose. I knew the major recognizable characteristics, scars and demographics and personalities, early. And I knew almost immediately who would live and who would die.

Details built a bit more around the individuals from there. Ryo became a young adult male pantropical spotted dolphin. He’s yet to mate or father any children, he’s extremely curious about any odd object in his environment, he refuses to eat capelin but will otherwise eat the Yue Center out of house and home. In the wild, he likes to flip over conch shells to see what’s underneath, but he doesn’t usually do much more or try to pick them up. His name would come from the stories Lin and Kya share with each other, but I didn’t know how (possibilities included everything from Starfish and Laura to Moon).

I know the five rehab candidates from the mass stranding similarly well, even though I don’t want to get into details yet. But for example, their names: more than a month of agonizing and hemming and hawing went into five simple names. My betas were instrumental in choosing some, and @mostly-mundane-atla was AMAZINGLY helpful in finding an Inupiatun name for one of them as well! Each one has a life history in my head that I’m hoping to work into the story, but even I know I can’t give all of it.

The mass stranding fatalities came in waves. There were demographics and pathologies I knew I wanted to hit upon, and usually dolphins built around those. The pod itself is from offshore stock, and on average around 100 individuals. Less than half were around during the stranding- they’d split into two groups. As I wrote each one, more details came up. There’s an elderly female mentioned early on, she was the oldest member of the pod. Her first calf, a female, is one of the animals hovering nearshore that doesn’t strand, and she’s looking for her mom right up until the rest of the pod is chased off. You’ve yet to meet him, but there’s a young male with a gash in his side- it’s a shark bite, not that they take time to determine that in the moment. My imagination ran wild with the animals. I have no regrets. I tried to get some of the emotion behind that across in Kya’s point of view, in the moments when she pauses and acknowledges these aren’t ‘just animals,’ they’re individual, intelligent lives. And while I can’t always convey that, I keep all these details in my head for the moments where I can fit one or two in, just as a reminder.

[niixell]

How many species of dolphin are there? Are there any predators for any species of whale? Why are pretty much all/all whales so got damn BIG? ARE there any small whales? Have you ever seen a dolphin orca or whale in person? Why are some dolphins pink like what happened there?

How funny is the orcas are predators of moose thing to you?

And also i hope your surgery goes well :3

(Sorry its so many questions you asked for more and its !!!!! Cool!!!!!!!!) (U dont gotta answer em all also answer whenever dbskhsks)

How many dolphin species are there?

currently, we know of 42 dolphin species, however that doesnt discredit the fact that we might find more sometime! :)

are there any predators for any species of whale?

many sharks will eat whales, and offshore orcas will commonly attack whales, especially mothers with babies as babies are much easier to kill, and though the mother is protective, she likely hasnt eaten in a Long time die to migrating back to feeding grounds after giving birth so she will be much weaker

why are pretty much all whales so goddamn big?

I don't know exactly why. but my guess would be it's because they are such docile creatures. instead of being sharp toothed/poisonous/clawed/vicious. they are just so Fucking Big, that most predators will find much easier prey to attack.

Are there any small whales?

well. they are still big animals. but compared to the bigger whales (10+ meters) there are more smaller whales than big ones. remember the toothed whales I mentioned before? there are a ton of those ones and they're all around 3-10 meters. look them up or ask me specifically about them! they're pretty cool and not very well known!

Have you ever seen a dolphin, or whale in person?

I have!! I've gone whale watching and seen orcas a couple times. I've seen both humpback and grey whales few times. I was at a beach in california once and there were (unidentifiable, probably bottlenose) dolphins that I saw a bit father out during sunset!! (very pretty. Very cool. had to be stopped and told I couldnt swim out to them)

Why are some dolphins pink? What happened there?

the pink dolphins are born grey and turn pink the older they get. like flamingos, their colour can be influenced but what they eat. but also where their veins are, and how much sunlight they get

How funny is the fact that orcas are mooses natural predator to you?

oh dude its absolutely hilarious. it is one of my favorite facts and it get such a good reaction out of people who dont know. they're always like "what?? no?" and they I explain why and its great

THANK YOU FOR ALL YHE QUESTIONS THAT WAS VERY FUN FEEL FREE TO ANY OF YOU TO SEND MORE

my surgery went well :) i am sore and tired but very good other than that!!

[mohrchelsea]

Bottlenose dolphins are found in temperate and tropical waters around the world. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, including harbors, bays, gulfs, and estuaries, as well as nearshore coastal waters, deeper waters over the continental shelf, and even far offshore in the open ocean • Hurricane Ida Relief: etsy.com/shop/mohrchelsea • #nature #outdoors #outside #louisiana #marsh #slidell #slidelllouisiana #wetlands #wetland #marshes #water #boat #morning #dawn #sunrise #wonderfulplaces #depthsofearth #traveling #discover_earthpix #earth #earthporn #earthdayeveryday #nikond610 #nikon #nikonnofilter #stademagazine #alliseemag #notasoulmagazine #fadedaesthetics (at Slidell, Louisiana) https://www.instagram.com/p/CT3afjXlCdv/?utm_medium=tumblr

[abyssalautistic]

more dolphins! 2nd pic looks like a bottlenose to me but i'm just a liiittle unsure about the others...one looked really big but i didn't get a shot of it

very nice to see :) when they went further offshore some leaped out of the water

[csnews]

There’s An Environmental Disaster Unfolding In The Gulf of Mexico

Rocky Kistner - July 11, 2019

As fishermen deep in the Louisiana bayou, Kindra Arnesen and her family have faced their share of life-altering challenges in recent years.

First came Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 monster storm that devastated her small fishing community in Plaquemines Parish before roaring up the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 people and destroying $125 billion in property. Five years later, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded 40 miles offshore, spewing nearly 200 million gallons of crude. The fisheries have not fully recovered more than nine years later, nor has her family.

But this year may be worse. A historic slow-moving flood of polluted Mississippi River water loaded with chemicals, pesticides and human waste from 31 states and two Canadian provinces is draining straight into the marshes and bayous of the Gulf of Mexico — the nurseries of Arnesen’s fishing grounds — upsetting the delicate balance of salinity and destroying the fragile ecosystem in the process. As the Gulf waters warm this summer, algae feed on the freshwater brew, smothering oxygen-starved marine life.

And as of Wednesday, an advancing storm looks likely to turn into a tropical storm or hurricane by the weekend, with the potential to bring torrential downpours and more freshwater flooding.

Fishermen and state government officials agree this long, hot summer may go down in history as one of the most destructive years for Gulf fisheries. The torrent of river water pushing into Gulf estuaries is decimating crab, oyster and shrimp populations. The brown shrimp catch this spring in Louisiana and Mississippi is already down by an estimated 80%, and oysters are completely wiped out in some of the most productive fishing grounds in the country, according to state and industry officials. The polluted freshwater has also triggered algae blooms, which have led to beach closures across Mississippi.

“The Army Corps of Engineers says we had the most rainfall in 124 years,” said Joe Spraggins, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. “Shrimpers and crabbers are struggling. Oystermen are almost nonexistent. … It’s not going to get better soon.”

“I’ve had grown men call me on the phone and cry,” said Arnesen, who serves on the board of the Louisiana Shrimp Association and works on state coastal management issues. “This feels like the height of the BP oil spill.”

Mississippi and Louisiana have already started the process of requesting federal disaster assistance for damaged fisheries. But it will likely be a long while before any money reaches the fishermen whose nets are coming up empty. To officially apply for disaster relief, Louisiana state officials say they need more data, which will take months to compile.

“We are seeing impacts across the coast in all sectors of the fishing communities,” said Patrick Banks, assistant secretary for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. “We will continue to collect data to support a disaster declaration.”

It’s not just fisheries that are suffering. Dolphins have been dying in huge numbers across the region — nearly 300 this year already, which is three times the number in a normal year, according to federal and state officials. Fishermen report finding dead dolphins floating in water near shore or beached in the marshes, covered in painful skin lesions that scientists have linked to freshwater exposure. One fisherman reported finding a mother dolphin pushing her dead baby along in the water.

“Their skin looks like a Brillo pad,” said Louisiana charter boat captain George Ricks, who heads the Save Louisiana Coalition, a coastal management advocacy organization.

Ricks and many other fishermen blame the unprecedented deluge of freshwater pouring into the Gulf. The Bonnet Carre, a huge spillway that protects New Orleans, has already opened an unprecedented two times this year to divert surging Mississippi River water and is currently pouring more than 100,000 cubic feet per second into Lake Pontchartrain. Being able to close the spillway again depends on rainfall upriver.

The Army Corps of Engineers operates the spillway and says it has no choice but to keep it open to protect property upstream. The Corps argues that some of this flooding can be beneficial to the ecosystem. “The introduction of fresh water during leakage events simulates the natural cycle of overbank flooding and provides numerous ecosystem benefits to the aquatic and terrestrial resources in the spillway,” the agency notes on its website.

But some marine biologists say the flood of freshwater can be catastrophic for species such as bottlenose dolphins, which are very territorial and are reluctant to leave their spawning grounds even when salinity levels become toxic. Endangered species like Kemp’s ridley turtles are also threatened by river water exposure, since they depend on rich Gulf marshlands to grow and develop.

“We are experiencing a Cat 5 aquatic hurricane,” said Dr. Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi. Dolphins are particularly vulnerable to incursions of river water, he said. “Every time they open the Bonnet Carre spillway, we see a spike in deaths.”

Solangi’s team recently found a stranded dolphin on a Gulfport beach, breathing slowly and covered in freshwater lesions. It died a short time later.

“Dolphins are like the black box found on airplanes,” Solangi said. “They tell you what’s happening in the environment. When dolphins are doing well, the environment is doing well.”

By all accounts, the Gulf marine environment is not well. Scientists predict the annual dead zone — a giant blob of polluted, deoxygenated water linked to algae blooms — will grow to the size of Massachusetts and suffocate even more marine life later in the Gulf this summer.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared the bottlenose dolphin deaths an “Unusual Mortality Event” in February, and its investigation is ongoing. Officials say higher-than-normal dolphin strandings spiked in May, when there were 88 discovered along the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts. That’s nearly eight times the average monthly number of dolphin mortalities during the BP spill from 2010 to 2014.

Total dolphin strandings have not reached the levels seen at the height of the BP spill, and there were fewer in June. Dr. Teri Rowles, NOAA’s marine mammal health and stranding program coordinator, said that researchers know freshwater exposure could be contributing to the health concerns, but that it’s too early in their investigation to pinpoint an exact cause.

“We do see dolphins with freshwater lesions, but not all the animals have skin lesions,” said Rowles.

Some dolphin populations have yet to recover from the BP oil spill, Rowles said, mainly due to reproductive problems. NOAA reports dolphins in heavily oiled areas are still suffering from chronic health problems and higher rates of failed pregnancies and mortalities.

But many fishermen who have worked in these areas for generations suspect something else is threatening their future: politics. As part of a plan to save Louisiana’s rapidly sinking coastline, state agencies want to pump in more sediment-heavy river water to help rebuild the disappearing land. Fishermen question the efficacy of freshwater diversions and worry about the dangers to fisheries and marine life posed by these projects. They question why NOAA would grant waivers to Louisiana last year to bypass the Marine Mammal Protection Act and allow the freshwater diversion construction to proceed.

Meanwhile, fishermen know a changing climate is not working in their favor. Scientists say the Mississippi River is expected to continue to flood in future years as the atmosphere heats up and produces stronger storms and more rainfall. Barry, the storm heading for the coast right now, is the latest to threaten the Gulf ecosystem, but certainly not the last.

All of this worries Acy Cooper, a fourth-generation fisherman and president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association who is leading a delegation of fishermen to Washington this month to plead their case for disaster assistance. He blames the Army Corps for not adequately managing the river and controlling and dredging the river passes that empty into the Gulf, making the effects of freshwater worse.

But his biggest worry is for his family and future generations. He comes from a long line of fishing families who have prospered and persevered in one of the most bountiful fisheries in the world, and he doesn’t want to be the last.

“My sons can’t make enough to feed their families,” he said. “What’s going to happen to them?”

Arnesen worries about this as well.

“If we keep operating like this, we’re going to kill the estuaries and the oceans, yet they still dismiss us,” she said. “Our fish feed America. That should matter to everyone.”

[lightningspam-photography]

Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops)

taken off the coast of California in the Pacific Ocean

status: Least Concern

The usual early post for a new photo trip! Went whale watching Sunday morning. This photo set isn't quite the best (it was a rough time overall testing the new camera out on animals in the wild) but I had to share photos of this special dolphin I was lucky to see.

This unique individual is known as Patches. Often he is referred to as the piebald dolphin but his white patches are the result of leucism! He's a rare sight and a little boat shy so these were the best I was able to manage.

[flukesandflorida]

I know it’s not the best photo, but this is a memory from an amazing event that I will never forget. We were staying in Placida in September of 2016, and one morning, we decided to do some “offshore” fishing. Now, when I say “offshore,” I really just mean “out of the intercoastal.” All we had was a Carolina Skiff, so we weren’t going to be doing any really far offshore activities. 

As the boat drifted along just off the beach of Little Gasparilla Island, I spotted something far out, like little splashes somewhere near the distant horizon. I immediately recognized what it was - “porpoising” dolphins! The dolphins began heading closer to the beach, “porpoising” and occasionally leaping clear out of the water. There must have been nearly 20 individuals, all around us. Some frolicked offshore, while others swam under “the pink house” (it was still standing back then) to hunt. 

It was so amazing. It made me think of the opening scene in the “Dolphin Tale” movie, where they show a pod of wild offshore dolphins swimming fast and porpoising.