Now entering its 19th year of research, the DRP continues to work to complete these objectives along the U.S. East Coast but is now focused in working in other regions where these topics remain largely unknown.  As progress towards completing these objectives is fundamental to the future direction of the DRP, in this month's edition of our newsletter, we update the primary objectives of the DRP and describe strategies to continue to engage the public in order to fill knowledge gaps and advance our understanding of this species within a regional context.  Click here to learn more.  

MAB Dolphinfish Tagging Initiative

Despite dolphin being the 2nd most targeted highly migratory species in the Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB) behind bluefin tuna, since 2002, there have only been 348 dolphin tagged and released in the region.   Due to the lack of tagging data, there is virtually no quantitative information on residency patterns, horizontal and vertical movements, and connections with the eastern Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, or South Atlantic Bight.  This data is necessary to address many of the research objectives outlined in the first article of this newsletter.  We value greatly the dedicated effort from Captain Chris and David Jobes of the Pair of Docs fishing team based out of Cape May, NJ, who are largely credited with acquiring most of the baseline data for the DRP within the MAB to date.  Now that the DRP is headquartered in Newport, Rhode Island, over the next several years, the DRP is focused on involving more captains and vessels in data collection on dolphin in this region.  To incentivize this effort, this year we created an additional awards program for anglers participating in the MAB.  This awards program was made possible by AFTCO, Star Rods, Shimano Reels, and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation.  To learn about the specific MAB awards categories and how to get involved visit beyondourshores.org/mab or click the banner above.     

New Sponsors Webpage Published

Sponsors of the Dolphinfish Research Program (DRP) help to fulfill our research objectives with anglers around the world.  To further acknowledge our gratitude for their support and to promote the services these great companies and entities provide, we have created a dedicated webpage that showcases each of our sponsors.  Visit dolphintagging.com/sponsors to learn more.       

Support the DRP in 2020