If anyone knows dolphins in the Florida Keys, itâs Steve McCulloch. He arrived in the Keys in 1970, after turning down an admission to West Point Academy, and began work catching and training dolphins.
âAt some point I realized I was taking and wasnât giving back, now itâs my turn to give back,â he said.
That giving back has come in the form of helping to rescue injured dolphins, whales and manatees as executive director of stranding operations at Dolphins Plus Marine Mammal Responder, a Key Largo-based nonprofit that is licensed by the federal government to conduct rescues of sick or injured marine mammals. The group covers an area of over 10,000 square miles and works in conjunction with other wildlife rescue organizations in the area, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard and the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, to act as a 911 dispatch of sorts for injured cetaceans.
An individual whale that has been studied in Florida over the last two years is part of a small group being named a new species. Where the sea creature was found sets it apart from similar animals. Rice’s whale is a newly-named species of fewer than 100 baleen whales found in the northeastern Gulf of […]