A team of researchers studying dolphins in the Potomac River got unexpected fruit from their labors last month when they witnessed a dolphin being born near the river’s confluence with the Chesapeake Bay.
A foraging calf surfaces in the Potomac River. (Photograph taken under NMFS Permit No. 19403 by Ann-Marie Jacoby)
Bottlenose dolphins are among the most studied species in the world, but a wild birth has only been documented in scientific literature on one other occasion: in 2013 off the coast of Georgia.
“I was beyond excited,” said Ann-Marie Jacoby, a Ph.D. student at Duke University and associate director of the Potomac-Chesapeake Dolphin Project, who witnessed the birth on Aug. 17.
Bay Journal - Article: Scientists witness dolphin give birth in the Potomac River
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