The Dolphin Tagging Research Program

[Gary Lavallee]

I would like to introduce our members to the Dolphin Research Project which is really starting to give us some valuable data and understanding of the swimming patterns and migratory habits of this great gamefish we all love. The Cooperative Science Services, LLC, a private fisheries research consulting company was founded by Don Hammond to continue the dolphin research project started by the South Carolina Department of Resources.

The 2006 research effort was very successful with 1,500 dolphin tagged by more than 260 anglers fishing aboard 143 boats. This is the second highest number of fish tagged in a single year. 2006 also saw a record number of tagged dolphin reported recovered, 49 fish. The recoveries involved 45 fish marked and released in 2006 with the other four fish having been tagged in 2005. Four of these fish were recovered more than 1,000 miles from their release sites while six other were captured more than 700 miles from their release points clearly showing the highly migratory nature of these fish. The fastest rate of travel exhibited in 2006 was a fish that averaged 79 miles per day which was well off the record of 130 miles per day set by a dolphin recovered in 2004. One fish showed that dolphin could travel almost the full length of the East Coast (Key West to Nantucket) in less than two months. Other fish continued to show the international scope of their travel being recovered off Antigua Island, West Indies, and the southwestern side of Puerto Rico.

More recently, Tagged Dolphin have been caught off of Puerto Rico that were originally tagged in the U.S. The program is picking up steam and could use all of your help.

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I encourage everyone of you to sign up and help Don Hammond tag Dolphin for his project. He could absolutly use your help if you are planning a trip to the Abacos, Eleuthera or any other of the Southern Bahama Islands for his project. To sign up to tag dolphinfish for this study, anglers should contact Don Hammond by email or telephone:

Donald L. Hammond
Marine Fisheries Biologist
Cooperative Science Services, LLC
961 Anchor Rd.
Charleston, SC 29412-4902
[phone]
[e-mail]

Dolphin Tagging Research Project Website