Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), as long-lived, long-term residents of bays, sounds, and estuaries, can serve as important sentinels of the health of coastal marine ecosystems. As top-level predators on a wide variety of fishes and squids, they concentrate contaminants through bioaccumulation and integrate broadly across the ecosystem in terms of exposure to environmental impacts. A series of recent large-scale bottlenose dolphin mortality events prompted an effort to develop a proactive approach to evaluating risks by monitoring living dolphin populations rather than waiting for large numbers of carcasses to wash up on the beach. A team of marine mammal veterinarians and biologists worked together to develop an objective, quantitative, replicable means of scoring the health of dolphins, based on comparison of 19 clinically diagnostic blood parameters to normal baseline values. Though the scoring system appears to roughly reflect dolphin health, its general applicability is hampered by interlaboratory variability, a lack of independence between some of the variables, and the possible effects of weighting variables. High score variance seems to indicate that the approach may lack the sensitivity to identify trends over time at the population level. Potential solutions to this problem include adding or replacing health parameters, incorporating only the most sensitive measures, and supplementing these with additional measures of health, body condition, contaminant loads, or biomarkers of contaminants or their effects that can also be replicated from site to site. Other quantitative approaches are also being explored.

Growth layers were examined in teeth collected from free-ranging bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, from Florida that have been part of a long-term study begun in 1970; 26 of the dolphins were of known or approximately known age, and 19 were of minimum known age. A second tooth was extracted from 6 animals for examination of growth that had taken place in the interval following the initial extraction. The teeth were read for age estimates without knowledge of any data pertaining to the animals. Most of the estimated ages were the same as or close to the known and approximately known ages of the animals, ranging from 2 to 16 yr. We conclude that the structures we define as dentinal growth layer groups (GLGs) are annual, we describe sources of error in age estimates, and we provide a description of the GLG pattern that can be used by others to estimate age for dolphins.

The growth of bottlenose dolphins is described from observations made during a capture release programme that has operated in coastal waters of the eastern Gulf of Mexico from 1970 to the present. Measurements of standard length, girth and body mass were recorded from 47 female and 49 male dolphins, some captured as many as nine times. Ages were known from approximate birth dates or estimated from counts of dentinal growth layers. In all three measurements. females grew at a faster initial rate than males, but reached asymptotic size at an earlier age. This extended period of growth in males resulted in significant sexual dimorphism in length, girth and mass at physical maturity. The growth of both sexes was well described by three‐parameter Gompertz models using either cross‐sectional data or a mixture of longitudinal and cross‐sectional data. There was considerable variation in size‐at‐age for both sexes in all year classes. Residuals of size measurements were used to derive measures of relative size for individual dolphins; most dolphins demonstrated little ontogenetic change in relative size. Body mass was adequately predicted by multiple regression equations that incorporated both length and girth as independent variables.

No abstract

We describe the life history of harbor porpoises in the Gulf of Maine by examining 239 animals killed in gill net fisheries and comparing these findings with the results of previous studies from the Bay of Fundy. Most female porpoises matured at age three and became pregnant each year thereafter. Reproduction was strictly seasonal, with ovulation, conception, and parturition occurring in the spring and early summer. The oldest specimen in the sample was 17 yr of age, but most individuals were younger than 12. The findings are similar to those of earlier studies from the Bay of Fundy and support the hypothesis that these animals form a single population. Harbor porpoises represent one end of a continuum of odontocete life histories that spans a wide diversity of strategies. In comparison with other, large odontocetes, harbor porpoises mature at an earlier age, reproduce more frequently, and live for shorter periods.