The Problem
The lack of knowledge and respect for the intelligence of our local bottlenose dolphin population and the invasion and destruction of their habitat.
Our Plan
Dolphin CLICS Cetacean Linguistic Intelligence- Chesapeake Survey Project Description: We aim to collect data on the communication methods of wild bottlenose dolphins (Turpis tropicanis) in the Chesapeake Bay. We hope to use this data to further our community's limited understanding of cetaceans' communication styles and promote respect and understanding between humans and dolphins. By collecting this data, we can improve our knowledge of wild dolphins and contrast it with data from captive dolphins to understand the discrepancies between wild vs captive dolphin communication styles. We hypothesize that linguistics will differ slightly between wild and captive dolphins because captive dolphins will have different learned behaviours due to their daily interactions with humans. Boosting understanding of these beautiful creatures will also boost their conservation. Studies (DRC 2023) have proven that heavy boat traffic and underwater noise impair dolphins' communication ability. One of our primary goals is to educate our local community on this issue to reduce boat traffic and threats to our local dolphin population. Protecting dolphins certainly has a ripple effect. By bettering the living conditions of our local; dolphins, the population will increase, an essential component to improving the biodiversity and overall health of the Chesapeake Bay. We believe that if we can get people to understand the depth of dolphin communication and emotion, we can get them to care. We will release a survey to gage our community's care and understanding of local dolphins and their communication. After we complete our research study (we will do this by observing every Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday the number of dolphins and their communication methods, verbal, physical etc...)we will present our findings to our local community to promote respect and understanding and empathy towards dolphins. We will then measure our community's involvement through surveys and programs like Chesapeake Dolphin Watch.
Themes Addressed
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Animal Welfare
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Compassion
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Water Pollution & Conservation
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Wildlife
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The Benefit
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Animals
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