Happy February! We hope you’ll join us for the upcoming Zoom shell club meetings. We have some great speakers that you won’t want to miss! Here’s a quick reminder about our speaker schedule for the rest of the season:
February 12: Stefanie Plein, “Citizen science photo-identification of local bottlenose dolphins”
March 19: Dr. Stephen P. Geiger, “Marine gastropod studies at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute: a shift in foci for molluscan fisheries”
April 16: Paul Jones, “Bivalves of Sicily”
One of the best parts of any shelling trip is seeing dolphins swimming in the Gulf, so we’re looking forward to having Stefanie Plein tell us more about these amazing marine mammals. Her lecture will focus on a brief background of bottlenose dolphin biology and ecology and former research done in the area. She will describe why she and her husband Stephen started this citizen science project, what their photo-identification methods are, and what they have learned thus far.
Stefanie draws from extensive education and research in the marine biology field. She earned a Master of Science degree in Biology from Western Illinois University while studying the home range use patterns of resident bottlenose dolphin in the Adriatic Sea. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology, Evolution, and Animal Behavior from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.
Stefanie has contributed to the photo ID of manatees with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and the photo ID of bottlenose dolphins with the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies and has volunteered for 6 seasons with SCCF’s sea turtle nesting program. She is an active volunteer with the marine mammal stranding response team in Southwest Florida and has taught eight semesters of marine biology to undergraduates at Florida Gulf Coast University.
She currently co-owns and operates New Wave Eco Charters and is the co-founder/executive director of New Wave Marine Foundation. The mission of the New Wave Marine Foundation is to conduct citizen science research to catalog and monitor the bottlenose dolphin population near Sanibel and Captiva Islands and to create awareness and inspire protection through education.
Be sure to join us on February 12 at 2 PM to learn more about our local dolfriends!