new findings regarding "Dolphins after dark" funded by florida specialty license plates - michael towner

Who knew dolphins in the Indian River Lagoon are night owls? They like to roam after the sun goes down, sometimes swimming out of the lagoon and into the Atlantic Ocean or up rivers, creeks and canals.
We know it now thanks to a study by researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Fort Pierce, in collaboration with South Carolina-based Seven Degrees of Mapping and the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, who used satellite telemetry to track four dolphins in the lagoon at night.
Previous research had indicated the more than 1,000 bottlenose dolphins living in six distinct groups along the 156-mile lagoon tend to stay in the lagoon, and dolphins in the ocean tend not to enter the lagoon.
Maybe during the day, but not at night.
Results of the study, published in the journal Animal Biotelemetry, show the dolphins traced by the satellite regularly left the brackish waters of the lagoon to travel into the ocean.

​The belief now is that the dolphins travel more at night to hunt and because they have less chance of human interference.

The research should show water managers and government agencies that lagoon dolphins, which face threats from boat strikes, entanglements and environmental contamination, have a larger range than was previously thought. The researchers attached satellite tags on the dorsal fins of four male dolphins, three adults and one juvenile captured during an ongoing health assessment of the lagoon population.

Funding was provided from sales of the "Protect Wild Dolphins" and "Discover Florida’s Oceans" specialty license plates with support from SeaWorld and the Busch Gardens Conservation Fund.