We will find out where the dolphins spend their time in the summer, fall, winter and spring and about their favorite fishing places. We'll note when they have their calves and watch the calves grow up. The research questions that we asked at the beginning of the study will take a long time to answer. Even if we had been able to get on the water for six weeks in a row, we still would not have enough information to answer the questions. We would have had a lot more photographs and dots on the map where we sighted dolphins, but it will take at least a year before we can even begin to think about some of the answers.
Science is a big adventure.
And, in the coming months and years, you'll be able to keep in touch with the Indian River Dolphin Project through the Sea World of Florida Web site and other sources. When the Dolphin Project team heads out on their boat, they map the locations where they see dolphins by recording the latitude and longitude of each dolphin sighting. Latitude is the distance north or south of the equator measured in degrees, in parallel lines around the earth. Lines of longitude are drawn from the North to the South Pole, and they measure the distance in degrees east or west of an imaginary line called the prime meridian that runs through Greenwich, England. Each degree is broken down into 60 minutes.