An Analysis Of Keith Rittmaster's Dolphin, Nc)
BEAUFORT, Nc. — As Keith Rittmaster walked out of his trailer--arms filled with shovels, buckets and brushes--14 volunteers gathered around him. It was the day of the big dig, and Rittmaster led his group through a secret, Nancy Drew-style forest entryway into what he calls the “dolphin graveyard.”
This group of biologists and citizen scientists came to exhume a skeleton of Moe the bottlenose dolphin, which Rittmaster buried nearly two years earlier. For marine mammals that dwell deep in the ocean, close observation of their behavior or anatomy becomes challenging. So Moe’s bones hold information about dolphin life that was long unattainable.
“Moe has a long history [with us], so we wanted to create a skeletal display to tell this story of research and conservation,” said Rittmaster, a natural science curator at the North Carolina Maritime Museum. Their journey …show more content…
“I went through our catalogs and found it was our well-known dolphin, Moe,” Rittmaster recalled.
Thayer’s team had to act fast during the necropsy (the animal version of an autopsy) because Rittmaster wanted to study and bury him in the graveyard. After peeling through his skin and blubber, analyzing samples and taking measurements, Thayer discovered one possible reason for Moe’s death.
“Moe had been entangled in some kind of fishing monofilament line and probably monofilament fishing net, which can really cut through flesh and cause an even worse problem,” she explained. “ And so that was likely the cause of [Moe’s] death.”
Untangling entanglement
Moe’s story, unfortunately, isn’t uncommon. Rittmaster and Thayer collected various stranded animals, such as an adult sperm whale and infant dolphin, entangled in “ghost” fishing gear.
“During the first 15 years of our study, I had never seen entangled dolphins—dead or alive. But in the last 10 years, I’ve seen at least a dozen, and I think it’s getting worse,” Rittmaster
This group of biologists and citizen scientists came to exhume a skeleton of Moe the bottlenose dolphin, which Rittmaster buried nearly two years earlier. For marine mammals that dwell deep in the ocean, close observation of their behavior or anatomy becomes challenging. So Moe’s bones hold information about dolphin life that was long unattainable.
“Moe has a long history [with us], so we wanted to create a skeletal display to tell this story of research and conservation,” said Rittmaster, a natural science curator at the North Carolina Maritime Museum. Their journey …show more content…
“I went through our catalogs and found it was our well-known dolphin, Moe,” Rittmaster recalled.
Thayer’s team had to act fast during the necropsy (the animal version of an autopsy) because Rittmaster wanted to study and bury him in the graveyard. After peeling through his skin and blubber, analyzing samples and taking measurements, Thayer discovered one possible reason for Moe’s death.
“Moe had been entangled in some kind of fishing monofilament line and probably monofilament fishing net, which can really cut through flesh and cause an even worse problem,” she explained. “ And so that was likely the cause of [Moe’s] death.”
Untangling entanglement
Moe’s story, unfortunately, isn’t uncommon. Rittmaster and Thayer collected various stranded animals, such as an adult sperm whale and infant dolphin, entangled in “ghost” fishing gear.
“During the first 15 years of our study, I had never seen entangled dolphins—dead or alive. But in the last 10 years, I’ve seen at least a dozen, and I think it’s getting worse,” Rittmaster