Passing the Torch to the Next Generation of Dolphin Researchers

After founding the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program and directing it for nearly six decades, Dr. Randy Wells is passing the leadership role to Deputy Director Dr. Katie McHugh.

Dear Friends,

I’m writing today to share news about some changes taking place at the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program. After leading the program for more than five decades, the last 37 of them with Brookfield Zoo Chicago (BZC), I’ve decided to retire from BZC and turn the reigns over to the next generation of leadership.

This transition to the role of Director Emeritus will allow me to continue to do the marine mammal research and conservation I love, while leaving behind the administrative tasks necessary to keep the Program operating. While this transition is certainly a poignant one for me, I’m pleased to be leaving the program’s leadership responsibilities in the capable and experienced hands of Dr. Katie McHugh, who started as an intern with the program in 2000 and will take over my role as BZC’s SDRP Director. I’m also excited to embrace new opportunities that will allow me to get back into the field for the hands-on research that initially brought me to the study of dolphins back in 1970 and catch-up on a list of papers that need writing.

As a 16-year-old kid volunteering to work with Blair Irvine on his study of sharks and dolphins, I could never have imagined how that work would evolve over 56 years, or that the SDRP would often be leading the way in breaking new ground in the understanding of dolphins and their lives. Throughout my time as Director, curiosity has remained a core feature of our research program and training center. And, as with so many research projects, the more we’ve learned about Sarasota Bay dolphins and their lives, the more questions we have.

Even after 56 years, the idea of being able to continue to ask and answer new questions about dolphins remains a thrilling prospect.

Randy Wells overseeing Mote Marine Lab’s first dolphin rehabilitation case in 1973.

I plan to remain actively engaged in the field through my continuing role as a co-founder and board member of the Dolphin Biology Research Institute, as BZC Director Emeritus, as a Scientific Advisor to the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, and through collaborations with colleagues around the world.

SDRP began conducting health assessments and tagging of offshore dolphins over the West Florida Shelf in 2022. Atlantic spotted dolphin Eugenie Clark (pictured below), was the first offshore dolphin tagged and was named in honor of the founder of Mote Marine Laboratory, where the SDRP began in 1970. The SDRP has been operated by Brookfield Zoo Chicago (formerly the Chicago Zoological Society) since 1989.

Together, with your support, the SDRP and our colleagues have accomplished much over the years. We have:

• Collectively published more than 400 scientific papers, four books and made more than 1,000 presentations to scientific colleagues and members of the public;
• Mentored 532 college interns, 145 international trainees and 116 graduate students;
• Collected more than 1.2 million dolphin images, identified 6,373 dolphins from across Florida’s west coast, recorded more than 400,000 hours of dolphin vocalizations, rescued 14 dolphins in Sarasota Bay (since 1985) and participated in or led 51 rescue attempts, including mass strandings, elsewhere.

The last three dolphins are released on the last day of health assessments in 2025. During health assessments, SDRP brings together more than 100 veterinarians and researchers gather samples and data for research studies.

I have no doubt that thanks to the highly experienced staff, in combination with the unique natural laboratory setting of Sarasota Bay, the SDRP will continue to be at the forefront of learning and knowledge about dolphins for decades to come.

I hope you will join me in welcoming Katie to her new role and continue to offer her the welcome and heartwarming support you’ve shown me over the years. While you will probably hear from me from time-to-time in this space, I’m happy to hand it over to Katie as she continues to make her own mark on the field.

I would like to thank BZC leadership — Dr. George Rabb, who invited the SDRP to the Zoo in 1989, Dr. Stuart Strahl, and current President and CEO, Dr. Mike Adkesson, along with the BZC Board of Trustees — for their continuing commitment and dedication to the SDRP over the decades. I’d also like to thank you for your interest in, and support of, our research, and for caring about the dolphins.

Here’s to fair winds, following seas and many more years of dolphin discoveries!

Randy Wells

Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.

— Fred Rogers

Meet the 2026 Sarasota Bay Dolphin Calves!

On May 1, 2026, we spotted the first calf of the year. 22-year-old Mom, Keeley (F209), had her sixth documented calf. Keeley is the granddaughter to Rebecca (FB55). Rebecca’s mom, W-2 (FB05), was first identified in 1971. Interestingly, the place we saw Keeley and her new calf was just two miles from where Greatgrandma was first identified! This is a great reminder that Sarasota Bay’s dolphins are long-term residents that inhabit the same areas over generations. (By the way, in case you were wondering, the nicknames Keeley and Rebecca are from the TV show Ted Lasso.)

2026 Dolphin Calves

Our second calf of the season was observed on May 6, 2026, with mom Patch (F227). The calf, 2275, is Patch’s fifth. Patch is the 21-year-old daughter of Pumpkin, (FB09) and the grandcalf of Ms. Mayhem (FB63). The appearance of the season’s new, naive babies are a good reminder for boaters to practice safe boating behaviors — especially in Sarasota Bay’s shallow grassflats.

Did you know that every six minutes, a power boat passes by dolphins in the Bay? Collisions with boats have the potential to injure or even kill dolphins. For instance, Pumpkin and her family are some of the dolphins that have been affected by boats in this area. In 1996, Pumpkin was hit by a boat propeller while swimming with her year-old calf named Pi. The propeller cut deeply into her dorsal fin and she became separated from young Pi for several days. A few years later, Pi and his buddy Noah were also hit by boats, leaving minor injuries on Pi’s dorsal fin and deep cuts along Noah’s side. Fortunately, they survived the accident but Seed, Pi’s younger sister, was not as lucky, and was killed when a boat hit her at the age of 3. Sadly, stories like these are not uncommon, with 1 in 20 dolphins in Sarasota Bay having boat collision scars like those seen on Pi, Pumpkin and Noah.

• Learn more

On May 12, 2026, we documented the third calf of the season. Meet 1655*, shown here with mom, Lily (F165). We first observed Lily as a calf in 1999. Since then, we’ve recorded well over 600 sightings of her. Her own mother, FB75, died during a bad red tide in 2006 after ingesting a fishing lure.

F165’s first calf was born in 2011, but did not survive. Her second, 1652, was born in 2016 and, despite the fact that we observed this calf with shark bites when it was only days old, the calf survived. F165’s third calf, 1653, was born in 2019. In 2023, she gave birth to the first calf of the year, 1654. This year, when we saw her with her newest calf, they were also with 1653 and 1654.

Sadly, we’ve observed F165 several times since our initial observations without her calf, who we now presume is deceased.

On May 18, 2026, we observed Mabel (F197) with her new calf, 1977. 1977 is the fourth calf of 2026.

Mabel was the second calf of a dolphin nicknamed Murphy Brown and she’s also the grandcalf of FB05 — one of the first dolphins catalogued in Sarasota Bay, in 1971. We’ve observed Mabel more than 900 times since her birth in 2003. Today, she’s a mom in her own right:

She had her first calf when she was 9 years old in 2012. That calf, Esther has been sighted more than 600 times since birth and is also a mom to two of her own calves.

• Mabel’s second calf, Gizmo, was born in 2015 and has been observed more than 350 times.
• Her third calf, F291, was born in 2017 and has been observed 100 times.
• Her fourth calf, Ron, has been observed more than 200 times since it was born in 2019..
• Her fifth calf, 1975, has been observed 100 times since its birth in 2022.
• Her sixth calf was unfortunately lost in 2024.
• Her seventh and current calf was first observed on May 21, 2026.

We frequently see Mabel in an area with high boat traffic that includes local recreational boats, rental boats and dolphin tour operations. We encourage all boaters to enjoy dolphins from at least 50 yards away.

• Click here to learn about dolphin-friendly boating techniques.
• Click here to visit Mabel’s page and listen to her signature whistle.

We first observed 2234 on June 6, 2026. This dolphin is the calf of Smart head (F233) and the grandcalf of Low 2 (F225). Grandma was first observed in September 2003.Low 2 was an immigrant from Charlotte Harbor, first seen there in 2003. We then observed her in Sarasota Bay in 2007. She continued to move north and was eventually seen as far as the Manatee River. We have not observed her since February 2025, but we don’t know whether she died or continued her northward outside of the range of our regular surveys.

2214 was first observed June 6, 2026. This calf’s mom is Nellie (F221), who is the seventh calf of CD (FB25), first observed in June 1984.

Nellie’s story is an especially interesting one. In 2010, we discovered her with plastic twine and a metal hook tightly wrapped around her head. A team of about 30 people temporarily captured, disentangled and released her on March 1, 2010. She was nicknamed in honor of Dr. Nélio Barros, who was manager of Mote Marine Laboratory’s Stranding Investigations Program between 2000-2006, and a great friend and colleague of the SDRP. He died in 2010.

2214’s birth shows the larger success of Nellie’s rescue, as this is the fourth calf she has given birth to. It shows that interventions to save individuals with life-threatening anthropogenic — human induced — injuries provide benefits not only to the welfare of those individuals, but also to the stability and growth potential of their local populations.

• Read more here

*Note: Not all new calves survive their first year. After repeated sightings of a mother without her offspring, we presume a calf to be deceased.

A team uses a seine net to capture fish in Sarasota Bay. The fish are released after they are catalogued as part of our prey fish studies, which began in 2004.

Notes from the Lab and Field: Prey Fish Surveys Help Us Understand Dolphins

Did you know that understanding dolphins and their behavior also means studying other species? In addition to studying the sharks of Sarasota Bay and their interactions with the dolphin community, we also conduct seasonal purse-seine catch-and-release fish surveys that help us gain an understanding of the relative abundance of fish in Sarasota Bay and how that abundance impacts dolphins.

We’ve been conducting seasonal prey fish surveys across Sarasota Bay’s shallow seagrass meadows since 2004. In a study led by Elizabeth Berens McCabe, we conduct 10 seine-net sets per month during January-March and 10 per month during June-September. Fish are brought aboard, identified by species, measured and then released alive.

During our January surveys, initial catches indicate typical bay-wide abundances, with sets averaging 125.4 total fish and 95.2 dolphin-prey fish per set. Notably, January’s mean catch was the highest for any January in the past three years. Catches spanned a diverse range of species and sizes: of 1,254 fish examined, 75.9% were identified as dolphin prey, driven largely by high numbers of pinfish (906 individuals). Winter cold fronts and abundant drift algae may have influenced January’s totals.

February’s fish abundance increased by 54.7% month-over-month, with catches averaging 194.2 total fish per set and 160.2 dolphin-prey fish per set. This marks the second-highest February mean catch recorded over the past six years. Of the 1,942 fish captured during the month, 82.4% were identified as dolphin prey — driven largely by pinfish (1,441 individuals). Overall, catches included 33 species and a wide range of size classes. The next round of fish surveys is scheduled for March.

Now in its 23rd year, the dolphin prey fish survey program is supported by the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation.

While conducting the prey surveys, we also gather environmental measurements, including water temperature, depth and salinity and dissolved oxygen, as well as a water sample to check for concentrations of Karenia brevis, the phytoplankton that causes Florida red tide. All of these environmental parameters can impact fish abundance, which in-turn impacts the dolphin community.

• You can read more about what happens when the prey community changes in this story.

A Nighttime Rescue in Crystal River

Capt. Justin Dymond of Florida Bowfishing Adventures in Crystal River contacted Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) in December to report that a dolphin he had been seeing regularly during his nighttime bow-and-arrow fishing charters had line wrapped around its tail fluke. Dymond uses a bright light to attract fish during these charters and a group of dolphins regularly follows his boat for hours, appearing to fish cooperatively with him and often swimming right in front of the bow of his boat.

Personnel from the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency responsible for overseeing the stewardship of marine mammals in U.S. waters, determined that a remote disentanglement attempt would be appropriate and asked the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program to help.

On the evening of Jan. 23, 2026, SDRP Field Manager and Senior Researcher Aaron Barleycorn and a team from CMA and the University of Florida joined Dymond to attempt to remove the gear remotely from the free-swimming dolphin. Using a long-handled cutting tool, Aaron was able to cut two of the three wraps around where the tail stock meets the fluke, but could not completely remove the gear.

After the cuts were made, the dolphin stayed near the boat, but would not come close enough for the team to make another attempt. The team spent several more hours trying to remove the gear with no success and ended the rescue effort around 10 p.m. The team hoped that they had cut enough of the gear to allow the rest to fall off on its own.

On Feb. 13, CMA staff joined Dymond on a charter, locating the dolphin — CMA2514 — and were delighted to see that the rest of the gear had indeed fallen off! The dolphin appeared to be in good body condition and was behaving normally and CMA will continue to monitor the dolphin in the future. Special thanks to Capt. Dymond for alerting CMA, allowing this dolphin to be freed from entangling line.

We know that one of the main causes of dolphin deaths is related to human actions, with fishing gear entanglement, hooking, or ingestion being the most frequent causes of mortality. Please be dolphin safe! Follow these tips to help keep dolphins healthy:

• Reel in your fishing line if dolphins appear.
• Change locations if dolphins show interest in bait or catch.
• Don’t feed dolphins – it is illegal and trains the dolphins to engage in dangerous behaviors.
• Release catch quietly away from dolphins when and where it is possible to do so without violating any state or federal fishing regulations.
• Check gear and terminal tackle to make sure it won’t break off easily and, if your line does break, be sure to collect anything left behind in mangroves or on docks.
• Use circle and corrodible hooks and don’t use braided fishing line.
• Stay at least 50 yards away from dolphins.
• Stash your trash in a lidded container on your boat until you can get to shore and dispose of it safely in a place where it will not blow back into the water.

Click here to learn more about dolphin-safe fishing

CMA2514 shown here free of the entangling gear.

Notes from the Lab and Field: 2025 Dolphin Community Update

January 2026

Happy New Year! A new year begins, and we have been able to conduct the first of our Sarasota Bay monthly dolphin surveys under excellent conditions, before the arrival of a series of cold fronts with strong winds.

I’m pleased to report that we closed out 2025 with our field teams identifying 90% of the Sarasota dolphin community members in November/December and that, overall during 2025, we documented all of the expected residents. In 2025, we observed a near-record 20 calves born to Sarasota dolphins. Our sightings in November/December included observations of 12 of the 14 remaining 2025 calves, all eight remaining yearlings (born in 2024), and seven of the nine 40-or-older community members. Plus: we observed the two young dolphins we disentangled in 2024 in November/December, and they are doing well.

But 2025 wasn’t all good news for Sarasota Bay dolphins. We lost two male dolphins due to vessel strikes. One was 6-year-old C33A, who died of blunt force trauma likely caused by a boat. The second was F266, also known as “Yogurt,” an 18-year-old who was recovered with extensive deep propeller wounds. The necropsy (animal autopsy) showed that Yogurt had been otherwise healthy. His is an especially troubling case because he is a son of Vespa, part of a lineage well-known to engage in risky interactions with humans such as “patrolling” by fishing boats, waiting for caught or released fish. Two of his younger siblings also died from human-related causes, including entanglement in fishing line and a net. (Watch the video below to learn more about Vespa and her offspring.)

Over the years, we’ve repeatedly seen a variety of interactions with humans that lead to bad outcomes, including:

• Provisioning: Intentionally providing bait, catch, or other items to a dolphin.
• Scavenging: Dolphins take fish or bait discarded by anglers in boats or on piers, when the angler did not intend to feed the dolphin. Instead of eating wild-caught prey, dolphins develop the bad habit of approaching humans.
• Depredation: Dolphins remove caught-fish or bait from fishing lines. This puts the dolphin too close to hook(s) and can lead to the dolphins getting hooked or injured themselves.
• Entangling, ingestion, and hooking: Dolphins can ingest, become entangled in, or hooked by active or discarded fishing gear and line. Entanglements can restrict their movements, ability to fish or escape predators. Entangling lines often cut deeply into the relatively soft tissues of the dolphin’s mouth, fins, and tail, leading to lesions, infection, amputations, and even death. Multi-filament braided fishing line is strong, razor sharp, shaped like a saw blade, and especially harmful.

We know from our five-plus decades of research that dolphin moms pass feeding strategies down to their offspring. If mom has developed a habit of seeking handouts from humans, then it’s more likely her offspring will learn these behaviors, which put them more at risk of injury and/or death.

The only way to lessen the risk is for dolphins’ human neighbors — us — to be more thoughtful on the water. Over the years, we’ve compiled a few simple tips that we offer to help anglers protect our finned neighbors. We ask that you take them to heart and please share them with your friends and human neighbors. A healthy dolphin community depends on you!

Here’s to fair winds, following seas and more dolphin-safe fishing in 2026!

Randy Wells

Conservation Tips for Dolphin-Safe Fishing

• Never feed wild dolphins or discard bait when dolphins are nearby. Feeding dolphins is illegal under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.
• Reel in your fishing line if dolphins appear. Relax and enjoy the show until they depart.
• Change locations if dolphins show interest in bait or catch.
• Release catch quietly away from dolphins when and where it is possible to do so without violating any state or federal fishing regulations.
• Check gear and terminal tackle to make sure it won’t break off easily and, if your line does break, be sure to collect anything left behind in mangroves or on docks.
• Use circle and corrodible hooks and avoid braided fishing line.
• Stay at least 50 yards away from dolphins.
• Stash your trash in a lidded container on your boat until you can get to shore and dispose of it safely in a place where it will not blow back into the water. (An old tennis-ball can with a lid is perfect for stashing used line until you return to shore.)

Notes from the Lab and Field

In September, we were once again over the West Florida Shelf tagging dolphins. This one, an Atlantic spotted dolphin nicknamed “Patty,” was seen the next day with a somewhat smaller dolphin that was acting like it might be her calf.

In May 2022, we initiated studies of dolphins inhabiting the waters over the West Florida Shelf, offshore of Sarasota. With support from the Florida RESTORE Act Centers of Excellence grant program, our team hoop-netted bow-riding dolphins of three species. The animals were brought aboard a floating mat or onto the afterdeck and we performed veterinary examinations and sampling, and tagged them with satellite-linked transmitters to provide location and dive data, as well as short-term digital archival tags that would provide more detailed behavioral and acoustic data, and then released them.

In September 2025, we again worked offshore, building on our previous work. Our goals were to:

• Increase our sample sizes for health and movement data of dolphins over the West Florida Shelf;
• Test a novel suction-cup-mounted camera tag developed by Dr. Jeremy Kiszka, Associate Professor at Florida International University (FIU);
• Try a new hoop-netting capture approach.

With support from Mote Scientific Foundation and FIU/Fahlo, we conducted an offshore tagging and health assessment project, experimenting with techniques to streamline our operations and reduce expenses. We used a smaller, faster, less expensive boat and a smaller team and focused on shorter handling and quick tagging instead of the more extensive health assessments. Fortunately, we had near-perfect conditions offshore, and the new approach worked well with Atlantic spotted dolphins (we had previously successfully used our TADpole to tag dolphins from this boat).

After examining the dolphins, we tagged them with satellite-linked transmitters. We also deployed FIU’s camera tags on two of the dolphins and successfully tracked and recovered the small floating tags the following day more than 50 miles from our dock. Both tags successfully recorded video and behavioral data (still being processed). This was the first time these cameras have been used on dolphins. (Click here to read more about some of the tools and techniques we’ve developed and/or tested over the years in dolphin studies.)

To date, we’ve now successfully caught, sampled and tagged 15 dolphins over the West Florida Shelf using hoop nets and have used the TADpole to tag another eight dolphins.

Atlantic spotted dolphin nicknamed “Buddy” wearing an orange camera tag as well as a Finmount satellite-linked tag. The camera tag developed by FIU automatically released from the dolphin and was retrieved the next day.

The September Dolphins and Their Travels

The map below shows the locations for dolphins tagged by the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program with satellite-linked transmitters through Oct. 10, 2025, during tagging, health assessment, and FIU camera tag deployments over the West Florida Shelf offshore of Sarasota, Florida. The largest dot at one end of each animal’s line is the most recent location along with its tag ID; only the highest-quality locations are shown. From north to south, the dolphins are Patty, Denise and Buddy.

• ID PTT 286483 (SfG018, Buddy) — Atlantic spotted dolphin, Stenella frontalis, 186 cm male, tagged on 24Sep25, 77 km off North Captiva Island, in waters 35 m deep. This dolphin was named in honor of Dr. Buddy Powell, an amazing conservationist and manatee researcher, whom we lost this summer.
• PTT 286485 (SfG011, Denise) — Atlantic spotted dolphin, Stenella frontalis, 205 cm female, tagged on 24Sep25, 81 km off Captiva Island, in waters 37 m deep. This dolphin was named in honor of Dr. Denise Herzing, the pioneering Atlantic spotted dolphin researcher who also provides us with age estimates for our tagged dolphins.
• PTT 286481 (SfG013, Patty) — Atlantic spotted dolphin, Stenella frontalis, 201 cm female, tagged on 25Sep25, 65 km off Casey Key, in waters 35 m deep. This dolphin was named in honor of recently retired NMFS geneticist Dr. Patty Rosel, who did much to define stocks of dolphins and other cetaceans in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.

Coming to the Aid of Dolphin Calves Near Clearwater

Things got scary for two dolphin calves off Clearwater before Halloween, when staff from Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) received reports about and observed two dolphins in the area they monitor entangled in fishing line. After getting permission from the National Marine Fisheries Service, we mounted a rescue attempt with CMA staff on Nov. 6 to see if we could use a long-handled tool to remotely disentangle the free-swimming dolphins.

CMA2510 is a dependent calf first observed with the entanglement on Oct. 9. Recreational fishing line was wrapped near the base of its dorsal fin and embedded in the leading edge of the fin with a trailing mass that included a strand of line extending behind its flukes. The mass collected more gear and algae over the next few weeks, adding to the drag and cutting deeper into the calf’s dorsal fin.

The second calf, CMA2512, was first observed Oct. 28 with blue and white multi-filament line wrapped tightly around its dorsal fin, embedding in both the leading and trailing edges of the fin with a mass of gear trailing less than a foot behind the fin.

The disentanglement team, including SDRP staff members Aaron Barleycorn and Jason Allen who unfortunately have a great deal of experience with remote disentanglements, left the dock around 10 a.m. The team located the first calf, CMA2510, at Prickly Pear Point near Belleair Bluffs, where its mom was feeding along a seawall. The team followed the pair and made several attempts to get close enough to cut the gear. Finally, around 1:10 p.m. CMA2510 surfaced near the bow of the boat and they were able to hook the gear at the base of the trailing edge of the dorsal fin, using the tool to cut through the line and pull it off the calf. Just as they were taking photos to confirm all of the line had been removed, a local tour boat operator called in a report with CMA2512’s location.

CMA2512 was with its mom and another mom/calf pair. Overcast skies made it difficult to pick out individuals dolphin below the surface and, when they surfaced, they were just beyond reach. The team made contact on two attempts to disentangle the dolphin, but the gear was wrapped so tight on its fin that the tool could not get under it to cut the line. By 3:15 p.m. visibility was poor and the animals even more evasive, so the team headed home without success.

CMA will continue to monitor both animals, with the hope that CMA2512 sheds the gear on its own.

These entanglements truly are scary — especially because we know that they can be prevented.

Based on research with the Sarasota Bay dolphin community, we know that one of the main causes of dolphin deaths is related to human actions, with fishing gear entanglement, hooking, or ingestion being the most frequent causes of mortality among our dolphins, accounting for 20% of all deaths where cause was identifiable. Please be dolphin safe! Follow these tips to help keep dolphins, especially naïve calves, healthy:

• Reel in your fishing line if dolphins appear.
• Change locations if dolphins show interest in bait or catch.
• Don’t feed dolphins – it is illegal and trains the dolphins to engage in dangerous behaviors.
• Release catch quietly away from dolphins when and where it is possible to do so without violating any state or federal fishing regulations.
• Check gear and terminal tackle to make sure it won’t break off easily and, if your line does break, be sure to collect anything left behind in mangroves or on docks.
• Use circle and corrodible hooks and don’t use braided fishing line.
• Stay at least 50 yards away from dolphins.
• Stash your trash in a lidded container on your boat until you can get to shore and dispose of it safely in a place where it will not blow back into the water.

CMA2510 after gear removal.