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Hubbs-SeaWorld
Research Institute Expands to Florida
The
recent gift from the Richard King Mellon Foundation
of 5 acres on the Indian River will let us establish
a field station for Hubbs-SeaWorld
Research Institute in Florida. Here, on land
adjacent to the large Archie Carr National Wildlife
Refuge, just 3 miles from the Sebastian Inlet which
provides access to the sea, we will build and staff
a new Conservation Research Center.
The
unique opportunities afforded by working closely with
the extensive SeaWorld marine zoological collection
combined with data collected through years of close
observation of local marine species will allow Hubbs-SeaWorld
Research Institute to immediately meet essential research
needs. We can study and affect a variety of threatened
or endangered plant and animal species (such as the
Florida manatee and sea turtles). Delicate, threatened
or disappearing ecosystems (such as the coral reef)
are likewise close at hand.
While
there are several marine research centers in the southeastern
United States, there is no one institute that has the
potential to sponsor major work in all the areas in
which HSWRI specializes.
We
are now preparing to meet capital needs to build the
center. We are already forging alliances (such
as that with the University of Central Florida) and
forming partnerships so we can help existing organizations
perform vital research on such vexing questions as:
what effects to boating activities have on dolphin behavior
(our access to the NASA security area on the Banana
River provides a valuable control for the study); have
dolphins learned to steal bait from blue crab pots and,
if so, what effect does that have on the fishery; how
to identify, and subsequently protect, different stocks
of bottlenose dolphins off the East Coast of the U.S.;
where, when and how long do the dolphins of the Indian
River Lagoon travel? We continue our work with
SeaWorld on stranded whales and dolphins, and studies
with manatees to help determine the causes of that species'
decline.
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