A Day in the Life: Research Intern on the American Star
Hello! My name is Erynn Brady and I am one of the research interns for the summer 2023 season at the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center. I am a recent graduate from East Stroudsburg University where I received my degree in Marine Science and General Biology. Since I was a child, I have…
The Bottlenose Dolphin: Almost Human?
The bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is a remarkable marine mammal known for its unusually high level of intelligence. In fact, the bottlenose dolphin is the second most encephalized being on the planet after humans, meaning that they have a very large brain-to-body ratio (Grimm, 2017). The encephalization quotient (EQ) is defined as the ratio between predicted and observed brain mass for an animal of a given size. This large brain size along with other complex portions of the brain account for the great intelligence of this species. Encephalization quotient data actually suggests that the level of intelligence in the bottlenose dolphin is closer to the human range than are our nearest primate relatives (Reiss et al., 1997). So how different is dolphin cognition and psychology from humans? Bottlenose dolphins exhibit a lot of intellectual behavior similar to humans such as…
Captain Flipper: Dolphins and their role in the Navy
Recently, the United States of America celebrated 224 years of being a free nation. A large part of that is a thanks to our Armed Forces, whether human or not. But while most people associate animals in the Armed Forces with dogs and horses, the Navy has employed some familiar faces we see off our…
Unusual Mortality Event Strikes East Coast
Unusual Mortality Event Strikes East Coast As of 2016, the Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) indigenous to our east coast has been taken off of the EPA’s endangered species list. The same year, January of 2016, marked the beginning of the Humpback whale Unusual Mortality Event (UME), from Maine to North Carolina, that would continue through…