Kathleen Dudzinski: First of all, I'd like to welcome all the students, and I look forward to answering all your questions to the best of my ability. In about a month and a half, I will be going back into the field to make more observations and gather data on dolphin communication. In May I will return to Japan at Mikura Island. In August, I return to the Bahamas. As we have done the last two years on the dolphincommunicationproject.org website, we will have field notes and an online diary of the research we're conducting so students can follow along with our progress. We are expanding the Bimini Project so students can learn more about that project as well. If they have questions, there is a place to send questions about our field work, and we try to reply as soon as possible while we're in the field. They also can learn more about our research on our website, and I encourage them to do so.

Kathleen Dudzinski: The Dolphin Communication Project is a nonprofit organization that has been in existence as a formal organization for about a year and a half, and we received nonprofit status this past August. In a nutshell, our focus is to look at how dolphins communicate and try to get an understanding of the meaning of their interaction. In doing so, we promote a collaborative effort among researchers as well as provide educational opportunities for young and old students alike.

Kathleen Dudzinski: That sounds great. You've made a first good step toward learning. I assume you're a younger student, so what I would recommend is to probably do more reading. Learn as much as you can about the various topics relating to dolphins--maybe their biology, behavior, conservation, various topics--because in this day and age, it's not really sufficient to say, "I love dolphins and I want to study dolphins." You need to focus and clarify what you want to study and learn. There are numerous topics you could learn about. I would recommend checking out a local aquarium or various other local organizations to start, and see if you could volunteer or do an internship. The best way to get more into studying dolphins, as with other fields, is to gain experience and therefore redirect and refocus what you want to study. You could probably also do some searches on the web, but just putting in "dolphins" will get you a thousand replies. Just please narrow your focus.

Kathleen Dudzinski: The machine is called the mobile video acoustic system and lovingly I refer to it as my array. It doesn't actually reduce the speed of sound for dolphins. It records their sounds and behaviors simultaneously so I can watch a videotape with left and right stereo sound and get a good idea of who's making that sound. This is important because sound travels 4.5 times faster in water compared to air, and dolphins are swimming ventriloquists. You won't see their lips moving, so it's hard for us to tell who's making a sound. The idea for building this came from conversations with my dad and my graduate advisor in 1992. Then to actually build it and put it together took one or two weekends, and I've been using it ever since.

Kathleen Dudzinski: No, I do not touch the dolphins when I swim with them. In fact, I'm probably one of the only people on the planet who prefers that the dolphins ignore me. The main reason is that I want to observe dolphin-to-dolphin interaction and communication, and I would like to observe them interacting with one another, not with people. We try to collect our data non-invasively, which means we try not to alter their behavior if at all possible.

Kathleen Dudzinski: There are a variety of different programs where you could become an intern or assistant, and the best bet is to do a web search. You could also check out the Society for Marine Mammalogy, and they offer a listing of programs for students. The Dolphin Communication Project does have an ecotour program because since 1991, our data in the Bahamas has been gathered with the assistance of passengers who come out to take their vacation participating in a research trip. There is more information about our trips and our field seasons on the ecotour page of our website. Unfortunately, we can't take non-paying volunteers on this trip because boat time is expensive, and this is how we fund our field work in the Bahamas.

Kathleen Dudzinski: My research is going well. We're learning more about dolphin communication. The focus of my research is how dolphins communicate and the signals they use to exchange information, and while it's important to know details about the population, I don't specifically study the population of various dolphins. There are about 33 species, and they vary geographically and by population sizes, so it's difficult to answer a general question about how they're increasing or decreasing their pods. It depends on the species.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I'm very glad you enjoyed the movie. It was sort of by accident that I got involved. In April '97 I received a phone call from MacGillivray Freeman Films, and the woman who called was asking all kinds of questions about my research, my equipment, the data. The research I was doing then (and am still doing now) was quite innovative and novel, and the filmmakers wanted to include the newest, cutting-edge information on dolphins that they could. It took about four years from start to finish to make that movie.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I guess I'd have to answer this the way I answer whether dolphins are intelligent. We have many different IQ tests for humans to measure intelligence, although none of those tests is good covering all the bases across the board, and I think it's even less appropriate to apply those tests to non-human animals. So the way I define intelligence is an adaptability and flexibility in behavior, such that an animal could not only survive in a new situation but thrive. In that sense, I would say that if an animal is well suited to where it lives and could adapt to a new area, then yes it's intelligent. Given what sharks do and where they are, they are probably very well suited for their life.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I give lecture tours wherever I'm invited. We do some internships through the Dolphin Communication Project and we do educational seminars a few times during the year, and those are announced on our website. If you want to participate in research, check out the ecotour page. There is also information on our website about opportunities and programs.

Kathleen Dudzinski: Yes, I have often observed aggressive behavior from dolphin to dolphin. I've never had a dolphin aggressively approach me, but I've never aggressively approached them. I think in general the media has given us this view of dolphins as this happy-go-lucky, friendly helper to man, and that the smile is permanent. It's not an indication of their emotional state. I've seen dolphins who can be very aggressive--biting, scratching, charging one another. We're not sure why, but they can be. I think it's good to know because dolphins are a social mammal, and one side of being a social mammal is a happy and good side, but another is the aggression, the fighting. All that together makes a well-rounded individual. Meaning a dolphin. (smile)

Kathleen Dudzinski: There are research opportunities for high school students, but it depends upon where you live. There are various field programs; for example, Oceanic Society Expeditions offers a high school program in the Bahamas. There are other field school programs through various aquaria. Also, Duke University has a field school in North Carolina, but double check that. I think the opportunities are there, but you have to search them out at your local library, museum or aquarium.

Kathleen Dudzinski: That would be really hard to answer. I don't think I would say it's just one behavior. To me, studying the communication or behavior of another animal species, specifically dolphins, it seems that each bit of observation gives you another picture of what's going on. It's a glimpse into their lives. They can be affectionate or aggressive. I've seen males herding females. I've seen juvenile dolphins ferret out an octopus from a rock crevice. I don't think the octopus had much fun, but the dolphins did, bouncing it around like a ball. Overall, I like to think that looking at the behavior of another animal species is like having a gigantic jigsaw puzzle where you've lost the box, so you don't know what the big picture is. Then each time you get a piece that fits, you get another clue as to what that picture is. It's a slow process, but it's fun.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I got started by doing an internship with a whale-watching company in Gloucester, Massachusetts. From then on, I knew that was what I wanted to do, so I read as much as I could and then applied and wrote to different professors whose papers I'd read to see if I could volunteer or intern with them. For you, it would probably be good to start looking for the different facilities that do dolphin research; for example the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Lab in Honolulu. They do dolphin research there with an intern program. There's also the New York Aquarium, and Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois. They have research programs. If you look them up, they might have information about intern programs or other opportunities on the web.

Kathleen Dudzinski: My family doesn't quite think that I've hit stardom. I'm still the same person. They still chat with me. I still have to clean the house periodically. I have two sisters and my parents and nieces and nephews. My biggest rise that I got from my family was that they were thrilled and excited. But a couple years ago when two of my nephews were 1.5 and 3, I gave a talk about the showing of "Dolphins," and I spoke for about 10-15 minutes. During my presentation, my nephew was the only one who could get away with heckling me. He didn't want to hear me talk, he wanted the movie and kept yelling "Dolphins!" They're happy for me and like what I do, so I get to share that with them.

Kathleen Dudzinski: There's a whole bunch we don't understand. The more we learn, the more we realize we don't know. That's true of studying most animals--you can't get a direct answer. The thing I like about research is that every question and answer leads to more and more questions. It's a process and a journey, and that's what's exciting about it.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I think the dolphin's playful manner is probably also the human perception of the dolphins. We see them the way they're presented in the media. They always have a smile which is fun and playful to us most of the time, and dolphins are playful at times. But they can also have times where they're not, resting or traveling, and it's more fun and more photographically catchy to show when the dolphins are playing. Nobody wants to watch when they're resting and avoiding people. Some of the perception comes from a biased view of when we want to show their behavior.

Kathleen Dudzinski: The nice thing is I'm always learning. While in school, I needed to learn how to write, prepare grant proposals, and write up the results of my data so other people--scientists and the general public--could understand them. I've learned how to do a variety of different statistical analyses. I've learned how to use computers. Believe it or not, we didn't have email until I got to graduate school. My dad taught me how to operate a boat, but I've learned more skill at that. How to scuba dive. My snorkeling skills have increased immensely. I'm learning more and more about photography and videography and everything that goes along with that.

Kathleen Dudzinski: My take on dolphin captivity is I am not against captivity. That doesn't mean I support taking more dolphins out of the wild to be in captivity, but I'm also not in favor of releasing every animal that's in captivity to the wild. Let me explain. My personal view (and it's based on about 12 years of thinking about this and observing them in captivity and the wild) is that the decision to take dolphins into captivity or animals into zoos was made a long time ago. Many animals now in captivity were born there, and I don't know of too many people who have the ability to ecolocate or catch a fish in their mouth. I don't think humans are equipped with the skills to teach a dolphin how to survive in the wild, so it's our responsibility to provide the dolphins with the best possible care and environment that we can. I also believe that coupling research on captive dolphins with research on dolphins in the wild will allow us to learn more about management and encourage the general public to participate in conservation practices. Many people on our planet will never ever get to see a dolphin in the wild, but if a connection is made at an aquarium and they want to participate, then that's a benefit. It's a tough issue no matter which way you present it.

Kathleen Dudzinski: We're getting there. It's interesting because it depends on how you define 'language.' Research on captive dolphins has shown that they can understand word order and syntax and grammar, and they know that gestures and acoustic cues can semantically represent objects around them, meaning they know that a gesture means another object. But as yet, we don't have evidence from the wild that dolphins use a grammar or syntax the way we do. That's not to say that they don't have a language of sorts, and they communicate using a variety of gestures and signals, which is what we're learning about and beginning to categorize. For example, they have greeting behaviors similar to what we have. Pectoral fin to pectoral fin or flipper to flipper rubs are often used when two dolphins come together. There are different rubbing behaviors that might be similar to human hugs, or grooming behavior similar to other primates, chimpanzees or gorillas.

Kathleen Dudzinski: There are a variety of careers in marine science work and that depends on what you want to study. If you want to study larger animals like dolphins, there's work in the arena where dolphins are in human care--trainers, managers, water quality experts. But there's also a huge range of topics in marine science that doesn't revolve around dolphins. There's benthic ecology, which is basically looking at animals that live on the sea floor. There's open ocean work, the study of invertebrates. Of course, there's everything involved around boat handling and safety, from the merchant marines to developing, building, and maintaining boats. There's scuba diving, the recreational industry as well as commercial. I may be getting a little off track, but it depends on what interests you in marine science. Some jobs are few and hard to come by, and others are more prevalent.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I'm not really sure about how you can help with the work that John Lilly had started in the human/dolphin program. He died last year, and I'm not sure if the foundation will continue that work or if it will be permanently put on hold. My focus is dolphin to dolphin communication. There are groups in Japan, Australia and Europe who do more of a human/dolphin connection. Some research it and some work with it in more of a different area, but I don't know of too many active research programs right now off the top of my head. That's a hard question to answer right now. If I hear of anything, I'll try to post something on DCP's website.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I can give you a little bit. The IMAX camera is about 80 lbs. in weight. The film that they use is different. One roll is about 1,000 feet in length, and it's 70mm, which means that of the normal regular films that you go to see at the movies which are 35mm, 9.5 of the 35mm frames would fit into one IMAX frame. And the field of view for the IMAX camera lens is 180 degrees, so everything in the front plane of the lens is in view. And so it takes sort of a special skill to do that filming because you have to take into consideration what will be in view. When they did the filming underwater, the IMAX camera plus the underwater housing were approximately 250 lbs. and not easily swimmable. Luckily, dolphins are very inquisitive and they were curious about the camera system. Something else that's really interesting is that if they were making an IMAX film just on land and filming regularly, the film would go through the camera at 24 frames per second, which means one roll of 1,000 feet of film would be shot in about 3 minutes. Under water, for the "Dolphins" film, they filmed at twice the speed so they could project the images of the dolphins in slow motion. This meant the film went through the camera at 48 frames per second and one roll of film was shot in 90 seconds. It also helps that my husband is an IMAX cameraman and photographer. He's answered many of my technical questions. If you have more questions, you can send them to the website. In the making of "Dolphins," they shot 250 rolls of film, about 65 miles, and in the 40 minutes that you watch on the screen, it's about 3.5 miles of film, so there are a lot of outtakes.

Kathleen Dudzinski: Unfortunately it is still going on, but not to the degree it was when that footage was filmed. Those are tuna nets, and there are some boats in the Eastern Tropical Pacific that still look for dolphins and will set their nets around dolphins in hopes they will get some tuna that might be schooling below them.

Kathleen Dudzinski: Dolphins are a key species in the ocean environment. They are a good indicator of the health of the environment. At times, for example along the Gulf Coast of Texas and also the Eastern seaboard or Pacific coast, you'll have dolphins that will wash up on shore and they are called 'strandings.' By examining the bodies, we can learn if the dolphins died of natural causes or if their deaths were influenced by, for example, toxins or pollution. So by observing dolphin behavior, studying coastal populations, following what may be normal or odd behavior, and estimating population size and such, we can begin to get an idea of the health of the environment, not just the dolphins. And to give you one example, for several coastal bottlenose dolphin populations, it's often been reported that when a female has her first calf, the calf will die because the mother will shunt toxins from her body through her first calf. It's not a pretty occurrence, but it happens.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I haven't heard about that. I'm not sure dolphins are really territorial per se because they don't have a lot of boundaries. They may have home ranges and may fight for access to females and food resources. I've not heard of dolphins being territorial when a human female is in the water. I've heard of a lone female dolphin that used to be in Belize who, when people got into the water to swim with her, would not let people out of the water. She would position herself between them and the boat. She wasn't observed with other dolphins, but sort of took people on as her pod. But she hasn't been seen in a while, and I'm not sure of other indications.

Kathleen Dudzinski: Research that was recently published in May 2001 on a study of dolphins at the New York Aquarium showed that dolphins recognized themselves in the mirror. It was a study done by Marino and Reiss, and they used various different markings where dolphins would need a reflective surface to see the marked body parts. Their studies showed that dolphins recognized the individual in the mirror as themselves, which shows that humans, dolphins and a few primates are the only species to show evidence of self recognition. What that says about abstract thinking and higher thought processes remains uncertain as this point, but it's optimistic.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I'll get to Japan probably around the 10th of May and DCP will be there around the 10th of July. I'll be there until the 30th of June. I go to the Bahamas the first week of August for 5-6 weeks, and our research in Bimini begins in late June and extends until September.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I think you'd probably have a better handle by doing searches. If you want to study marine biology, I would recommend schools along the coast, for example Woods Hole, The University of Connecticut, Duke University, University of Florida, University of Washington (state), University of Hawaii, and most of the universities in California. I would recommend what I did--I got a strong solid background in basic science, biology, chemistry, math, physics--and then I would say try out some different topics like marine biology and psychology. It will give you a strong basis if you're planning to go on to graduate school.

Kathleen Dudzinski: Lots of funds! There are a variety of different methods to acquire funds. Most of it is grant writing. You can apply for grants through government organizations, universities, and private foundations. Currently what we do at the Dolphin Communication Project is develop a budget for each of our field work projects and seek money to cover those budgets.

Kathleen Dudzinski: It's really hard to provide just a specific answer. Dolphins are very curious animals, and if they noted you were there, they probably did want to check you out. They may have responded to you. I don't know where you were, but it's possible they were curious, checked you out and moved on.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I think you'd probably have a better handle by doing searches. If you want to study marine biology, I would recommend schools along the coast, for example Woods Hole, The University of Connecticut, Duke University, University of Florida, University of Washington (state), University of Hawaii, and most of the universities in California. I would recommend what I did--I got a strong solid background in basic science, biology, chemistry, math, physics--and then I would say try out some different topics like marine biology and psychology. It will give you a strong basis if you're planning to go on to graduate school.

Kathleen Dudzinski: I want to thank the audience for their questions. I enjoyed sharing a bit of my work and life with you. To all of the students out there, I guess I wanted to share with you not to let "can't" enter your vocabulary. I tend to ignore that word--if I think I can do something, I do it, and if you set your mind to it, you'll be able to achieve the same.