Mote Receives Federal Grant To Support Dolphin, Whale Rescues

SARASOTA, FL – The sea life of Sarasota and Manatee counties recently received a boost by way of a federal grant.

In the 2016 cycle of the John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grant Program, NOAA Fisheries awarded $96,929 to Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota to help support and enhance its efforts as a National Marine Mammal Stranding Network partner.

Mote received one of the 32 grants given to nonprofit organizations, aquariums, universities and coastal state, local and tribal governments that are members of the network. Last month, NOAA awarded $3 million in grants to organizations that rescue, rehabilitate, recover and support conservation of marine mammals such as dolphins and whales.

“Prescott grants are extremely important to us as a nonprofit organization rescuing and rehabilitating marine mammals,” said Gretchen Lovewell, manager of Mote’s Stranding Investigations Program.

Lovewell said the grants are the only direct source of federal funds for members of the National Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

“As part of this network, we are first responders providing emergency aid to dolphins and whales that might otherwise have no helping hand,” she said. “When animals can’t be saved or strand dead, we continue to learn from them through extensive post-mortem exams.”

Mote’s Stranding Investigations Program responds around the clock to reports of sick, injured and dead marine mammals and sea turtles in Sarasota and Manatee counties. Mote’s Dolphin & Whale Hospital and Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital provide care to protected species with the goal of returning them to the wild.

The two programs have responded to more than 1,400 sea turtle strandings and more than 680 dolphin and whale strandings of 25 species. Since 2010, Mote has received an average of 495 calls per year and responded to and recovered a total of 620 stranded sea turtles, 67 dolphins or whales, three mass-strandings of dolphins, while also assisting in the response to 195 manatees.

When animals are recovered dead, Mote conducts necropsies to better understand the challenges the sea life has faced. The work has produced 20 years of archived frozen and preserved tissues, more than 30 years of dolphin and whale bone specimens in Mote’s Ruth DeLynn Cetacean Osteological Collection, and resulting scientific presentations and publications to inform conservation.

The new Prescott grant will help Mote:

• Continue activity as primary first-responder for marine mammal strandings for 400 miles of southwest Florida Coastline.
• Partially fund a large cargo van, which will help responders transport more animals faster.
• Rescue more entangled dolphins through the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, drawing upon the program’s knowledge of southwest Florida dolphins and its experience leading dolphin rescues and health assessments in the wild.
• Continue the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program’s long-term data collection, which has identified and continually studies 160 individual resident dolphins of Sarasota Bay.

For more information, visit www.mote.org.

Image courtesy of Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium