Comments on: Guest Post: True Confessions of a Dolphin-Loving Marine Biologist

By: Is Marine Biology for Me? | Unwhale

Is Marine Biology for Me? | Unwhale — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 12:48:57 +0000

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By: Open Laboratory 2013 – submissions so far | orangehairdye.com

Open Laboratory 2013 – submissions so far | orangehairdye.com — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 12:41:57 +0000

[…] (Alistair Dove): A (fetid) river runs through it, the Brooklyn edition Deep Sea News (Alexis Rudd): True Confessions of a Dolphin-Loving Marine Biologist Deep Sea News (Craig McClain): Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow Deep Sea News (Craig McClain […]

By: Aeolius

Aeolius — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 03:22:25 +0000

In reply to Aeolius.

As a follow up, this is how I found my youngest daughter, tonight: https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/423398_3412290316808_1556535430_2946044_1278471690_n.jpg

By: Alexis

Alexis — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:07:03 +0000

In reply to Aeolius. Awwww, that's so great!!! You just made me tear up a little. :) Vaquitas are seriously under-represented and under-loved. What a cool kid!

By: Aeolius

Aeolius — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:53:48 +0000

I thought you might appreciate this. When I showed one of my youngest daughters the vivavaquita website, she fell in love with the lil’ critters. Granted, when I was her age, I was all over the 599.98 shelf (marine mammals, at the time) at the elementary school library.

Today is a snow day. My daughter came up to me and asked “Daddy, can I do a project about vaquitas today?” :)

By: Helen January

Helen January — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:32:07 +0000

I love to read about your marine studies. I used to SCUBA dive and take video with my underwater camera. I was studying animal behavior of everything I saw. I learned more from observing than from a book. The creatures accepted my presence, and I could move freely among them. This was not a job, it was just fun to learn.

By: Alexis

Alexis — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:06:07 +0000

Para_sight: Good point, and I am afraid I didn’t make that more clear. It’s been clarified. An assumption that many people in the public make about dolphin research is that it follows their own experience with dolphins, and this experience centers around shows and swim with dolphins programs. I work with several people who are involved in very amazing captive animal research, sometimes at aquariums, and aquariums can be a valuable resource for cetacean science.

By: The Flotsam Diaries

The Flotsam Diaries — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:02:34 +0000

Love this! If I may, it reminds me of another big conversation happening in a completely unrelated field — British archaeology. Folks studying Hadrian’s Wall often take a lot of flak from other archaeologists. The Wall is of course iconic, it’s beautiful, everyone knows about it, it’s been studied the most. And the argument is: “There’s so much more amazing stuff to study, why waste your effort on that??”

The compelling counter-arguments are much like yours: because we still don’t really know that much, and because it’s highly threatened and parts are in danger of being loved to death. Which would be a huge loss, as the unpopulated central region still preserves so much of the interaction between artifact and landscape that’s usually been bulldozed away in other regions.

With cetaceans as with the Wall, it may be exactly because they’ve been studied so much that it’s worth it to keep studying them. To get at the deeper, more elusive, bigger answers about them that might help illuminate work on other creatures & ecosystems.

Anyway, really liked the post.

By: para_sight

para_sight — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:16:24 +0000

I don’t think we should be too quick to judge the research done on dolphins in aquariums and marine mammal parks. Pretty much everything we know about them has been informed at some point or another by aquarium-based research, particularly in the fields of clinical veterinary research, sensory biology and behavioural studies. These projects are different from and very often complimentary to the work done in field settings, which usually focuses on natural history and population ecology. Many marine mammal institutions are involved in field research programs and collaborate freely with non-aquarium scientists, so the distinctions between aquarium and non-aquarium research are artificial anyway. Also, it’s not safe to assume that all aquarium dolphin programs are designed to make money; many such facilities are non-profits including both the aquariums I have worked at, both of which housed dolphin collections. If you make these assumptions about aquariums and aquarium-based research, you’re falling prey to the exact same stereotyping behaviour that your post sets out to discourage.

By: J-P

J-P — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:48:48 +0000

I got your site off twitter. I would love for you to speak about conservation on http://www.invertplanet.com. This is an open invitation. Take a look at the site, and you will get your own section to discuss your views and findings.

All the best,
J-P