Winter 2009, Volume 4, Issue 1

Transcription

1 , Winter 2009, Volume 4, Issue 1

2 Summer Winter 2009, 2007, Volume 4, 2, Issue 12 Inside this issue: New Dolphin License Plate IMMS Now Welcomes Local Students New License Plate to Benefit IMMS New Museum at CMER 3-4 New Discovery Room 4-5 Dolphin Acoustic Study 5-6 New IMMS Website 6 Kidz Zone Who We Are and Contact Information Did you know? Bottlenose dolphins are distributed all over the Insert Insert world in both temperate and tropical waters. Dolphins occupy a variety of habitats ranging from near shore, coastal areas to deep, offshore waters. There are 5 species of dolphins that live in freshwater. The design for the Protect Our dolphins license plate, currently ONLY available through IMMS. The Mississippi State Tax Commission has approved a new Protect Our Dolphins license plate that will benefit the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies. Proceeds from the sales of these plates will help further the work IMMS does in dolphin research, stranded dolphin rescue and rehabilitation, marine conservation, and educational activities for students and the general public. These tags are NOT currently available at the tax collector s office and can only be reserved through IMMS. Please visit our website to download an application and to learn more about this campaign. In order for the tags to be available through the tax collector s office, 300 tags must be pre-sold in order to demonstrate that there is public interest in these plates, and in protecting dolphins in Mississippi. However, if 300 tags are not pre-ordered, the dolphin license plate will not make it to production. That is why it is very important for those who are interested in purchasing a dolphin tag to do so now instead of waiting until it is available at the tax collector s office. In fact, we have great news! IMMS no longer requires payment of the $31 tag fee to be turned in with the application. Instead, payment will be due to 2009 Institute for Marine Mammal Studies Page 1

3 Winter 2009, Volume 4, Issue 1 IMMS when the new dolphin tag is issued. However, payment can be made at any time. If you wish to pay with a credit card, please call The success of this license plate campaign represents a vital opportunity for us to secure continued funding during these troubling economic times and beyond. We sincerely hope that you will support IMMS by reserving this special tag and that you will continue to help us by spreading the word about this ongoing campaign! IMMS Now Welcomes Local Students The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies is very excited to announce that the Center for Marine Education and Research (CMER) is now accepting reservations for field trips! Our staff has been hard at work developing a facility that will provide a fun and educational experience for students along the Gulf Coast and in surrounding areas. On Saturday, January 10, 2009, IMMS hosted a special Teacher Orientation Day. Teachers in attendance had the opportunity to tour the Center for Marine Education and Research, and experience the field trip program that their students will be offered. CMER staff members utilized this day as an opportunity to talk with the teachers and received wonderful feedback and suggestions on how we might improve our field trips. A student engaged in learning the anatomy of a blue crab, a species native to Mississippi s gulf shores. Students from Ms. Carol Paola s Discovery program at Quarles Elementary actively participate in activities in the museum at CMER. We will officially open for school groups beginning March 1, When students arrive at CMER, they will start their experience by watching an educational video in our auditorium. Next, they will be led to our Discovery Room. Here they will have the opportunity to learn about horseshoe crabs, blue crabs, hermit crabs, and other local marine animals. Under a staff member s supervision, the students will get a hands-on experience by getting up close with some of the animals. Finally, each group of students will visit our interactive museum. Upon entering the museum, they will be amazed at the seven hanging life-size replicas, all representative of animals found in the Gulf of Mexico. They will also have the opportunity to read our educational graphics as well as participate in our Fossil Dig. The Fossil Dig is a large sandbox filled with shark teeth and shells. Page 2

4 Winter 2009, Volume 4, Issue 1 The students will sift through the sand, collect a shark tooth, and then receive an information card identifying and briefly describing the shark from which it came. Students can also find shells in our Fossil Dig. Those whom are interested in the shells can learn where the shell is naturally found and what animals may call it home. As our facility continues to grow we will be adding interactive displays and personalized educational programs. Later in the year, we hope to open our doors to the public. Mrs. Paola enjoys a video presentation with her students. IMMS staff is very eager to welcome student field trips to our amazing facility! If you would like additional information about IMMS or the Center for Marine Education and Research, please visit our website at To schedule a field trip for your students, please call Students learning about sharks through an interactive exhibit allowing them to hunt for and identify shark teeth. CMER Museum: Phase One Completed! Is a dolphin a mammal or a fish? What are the differences between seals and sea lions? How many species of whales, dolphins, and sea turtles are found in the Gulf of Mexico? How do we rescue a dolphin? And most importantly, why do we study dolphins? All of these questions and more are answered in the new 2,000 sq ft The first phase of exhibits in the new museum at CMER. museum at the Center for Marine Education and Research (CMER). Children will be intrigued by the colorful graphics, life-sized animal replicas, and educational exhibits. This is not only a place to teach our youth about marine species and environmental conservation, but also a place where visitors of all ages will have the opportunity to learn exciting facts about marine animals. Page 3

5 Winter 2009, Volume 4, Issue 1 The museum at CMER is also home to the artwork of a local sculptor, Mr. Richard Swenson. Mr. Swenson specializes in scrap metal sculptures, with animals as his main subjects. As a retired nuclear physicist, his work began as a hobby and blossomed into a creative outlet as his sculptures not only grew in size, but in numbers as well. Mr. Swenson s creativity was sparked by the pile of scrap metal left behind after restoring John Deere tractors (the tractors were his initial post-retirement pastime). By welding together carefully selected pieces, he is able to create clearly recognizable creatures of all shapes and sizes. IMMS is very fortunate to be the temporary home to seven of his fantastic creations, one of which, a sperm whale, was created specifically for IMMS. Visitors will have new experiences each time they return to CMER: Replicas of a mother manatee and her calf hang from the museum ceiling. Other animal replicas include a bottlenose dolphin, bull shark, loggerhead sea turtle, manta ray and pilot whale. Phase Two will entail interactive touch panel displays teaching children about echolocation, the sounds of whales and dolphins, and litter decomposition. Phase Three is still in the works. We are continuously coming up with new ideas to better enhance the educational experience at CMER. If you or your business is interested in sponsoring one of the present or future exhibits, please contact IMMS at to make a tax-deductible donation. The New Discovery Room at CMER Dr. Rick Kastner is one of the newest members of our IMMS family and serves as Senior Biologist. Dr. Kastner is involved with the design, procurement, and care of most of the living exhibits in the Discovery Room and Touch Pool at IMMS new Center for Marine Education and Research (CMER). You will be certain to see him there when you visit! The Discovery Room is an exciting place to be! It seems that there is always something A touch pool exhibit demonstration conducted by Dr. Kastner. happening or an exhibit or critter being added. The Discovery Room now includes a touch pool, freshwater and saltwater aquaria, a habitat with small turtles and frogs, pictures of sea life, and other specimens you may find on a visit to the Gulf. Most of the animals in Page 4

6 Winter 2009, Volume 4, Issue 1 the touch pool are indigenous to the Gulf of Mexico and include blue crabs, white shrimp, hermit crabs, sea stars, and horseshoe crabs. Visitors of all ages are sure to have a fun and educational encounter! The Discovery Room contains a number of aquarium exhibits containing various species of fish and invertebrates. If you are looking for a volunteer opportunity on Mississippi s Gulf Coast, IMMS new CMER could be the right place for you! There s always room for more volunteers to help with the care of our animals and assist with educational programs. Ms. Emma Jarvis, our Volunteer Supervisor, would be happy to contact you and answer any questions you may have about our volunteer program. Speaking of volunteers, Ronnie Campbell has tallied more than 50 hours of volunteer service in just six weeks! Way to go Ronnie! The Discovery Room s touch pool exhibit is an excellent way for students to learn about a few of Mississippi s indigenous aquatic species. A juvenile red-eared slider makes its home in the Discovery Room s reptile/amphibian habitat. Dolphin Sounds in the MS Sound Last summer, the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, in collaboration with the Naval Research Lab (NRL) at Stennis Space Center, began a new research study on the wild dolphins of the Mississippi Sound. The new study is designed to correlate dolphin behavior with vocalization patterns. The IMMS staff is responsible for collecting the data that will later be evaluated and processed by scientists at the Naval Research Lab. All of the dolphin pictures in this article were taken in the Mississippi Sound during IMMS wild dolphin research excursions. Page 5

7 Winter 2009, Volume 4, Issue 1 During each boat trip, we use a hydrophone connected to a laptop computer to record dolphin vocalizations. When we locate a pod of dolphins, we shut down the boat engine and drop the hydrophone in the water. While we can t hear the dolphin vocalizations, the computer program indicates visually when the hydrophone picks up any noise underwater. We record these vocalizations at 30 second to 1 minute intervals, and simultaneously record observed data regarding the pod size, animal behavior, age estimations, etc. When the data is analyzed by NRL, the dolphin vocalizations are isolated and matched with our behavioral data. Researchers at NRL are hopeful that it may be possible to: 1) identify individual animals by their own unique vocalization patterns and 2) identify dolphin behavior that we cannot observe at the water s surface, by the vocalization patterns that the animals emit. Unfortunately, because of uncooperative weather and other scheduling problems, we haven t been able to collect as much data as we d like, but we have completed a few successful trips. Hopefully, 2009 will bring us better luck! IMMS Website Has a New Look Renovations have been made to the IMMS website to give it a more modern look and feel. The brightly colored tabs and drop down menus on the home page make navigation easy. A visitor to our website can learn many things about IMMS including our organizational background, the educational programs we offer, and research projects we are conducting. On our website it is also possible to meet the staff, learn about different marine mammals, download fun arts and crafts projects, read about some of our marine animal rescue efforts, make a donation to IMMS, help with our dolphin license plate The newest homepage of campaign, or book a field trip! Please visit our website at and check it out! Page 6

8 Winter 2009, Volume 4, Issue 1 Why are whales big and gray? Because if they were small and pink, they would be called shrimp!!! C T M R E C Y C L E X O O B A L L I G A T O R T P U M I S E I C E P S H E O M F L O U N D E R C N Y A S N F C A Z Y C R S A L T B E L U G A O A E N A R C H B U D E N E G T E A M F G H K J C S R I K M G N I R R E H E RECYCLE HERRING CONCH FLOUNDER ALLIGATOR BELUGA TAIL FLUKES SALTWATER SPECIES RESEARCH BUOYANT TEAM MAMMAL CRANE P L R E T A W T L A S R Who we are / Contact information The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies (IMMS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in It has been a part of the National Stranding Network since its inception. IMMS is the premiere marine mammal organization in the Mississippi-Louisiana-Alabama sub-region of the Gulf Coast that has the capability and expertise to care for sick and injured marine mammals. The mission of IMMS is to support innovative and critical research of marine mammals and their environments, and to better understand the role and responsibility humans have in the management of marine mammals in the wild and under human care. This collaborative effort combines the resources of IMMS along with universities, state and federal agencies to provide funding for projects that directly impact marine animals. The Institute is dedicated to the understanding of marine life through research, education, conservation and innovation. If you see or hear of a marine mammal or other marine species stranded, or in need of help, please call the stranding hotline number listed below.

9 (Nautica International Boats) Please support our sponsors; they support us. The cost of rehabilitating a dolphin can be as much as $400 a day. All of the Institute s efforts require significant resources. Generous donations greatly help with the endless needs that arise in caring for sick and injured marine animals and in conducting research. Interested in becoming a sponsor or making a charitable donation? Contact us at: contactus@imms.org Visit us online at for membership options. Are you interested in becoming a part of the foundation of the new IMMS facility? A donation will give you the opportunity to leave your mark! Please contact us for details.