The results of the annual bottlenose dolphin count along the Maryland coast, conducted by the Baltimore National Aquarium, have been released. 117 dolphins were counted this year. That’s compared with 344 dolphins counted last year.
Those numbers sound like bad news for bottlenose dolphins in the Atlantic, but they might not actually be, given the longer patterns of observations over the last 13 years of the citizen science count. In 2007, only 17 dolphins were counted. In 2002, only 9 were found.
It turns out that this count of bottlenose dolphins is highly variable from year to year. So, it’s only over the very long term that the citizen science effort will reveal meaningful understanding of population trends.
That doesn’t mean that the project isn’t worthwhile. However, there’s no reason to panic because of a change over just one year.
