Who chooses official designations for individual dolphins, such as FB15, F153, F286?

[nomadreid]

I have seen articles from the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (USA) about bottlenose dolphins in which, for example, a dolphin nicknamed Nicklo had the official name FB15, her dolphin friend Blacktip Doubledip had the official name F153, and one of her great calves was F286.

Examples of such articles:
https://sarasotadolphin.org/fb15/
https://www.mmc.gov/wp-content/uploads/Wells_bottlenose_dolphin-research_fl_0415.pdf

Is there some official agency (international or American) that catalogs individual dolphins, such as the AIU for planetary bodies, or would these names merely be in the internal catalog of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program? My internet search only turned up articles about how dolphins had names for each other.

 

[Tom.G]

I spent about 1/2 hour and couldn't find a specific answer.

What I did find was https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/search?oq=tagging
With over 1,200 hits of the search for "Tagging".

You might try a local Marine Aquarium if there is one.

Or the "Aquarium of the Pacific" in Long Beach, California, USA
https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/
(562) 590-3100
9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. PST
(PST is GMT-8 hrs. in Winter, or PDT is GMT-7 hrs. in Summer)

Cheers,
Tom

p.s. Please let us know if you find an answer; we like to learn too!

 

[BillTre]

You would probably want to talk with some one actually doing research on these animals.

I would expect that there are series of different names of particular animals. Researchers might give them numbers, or place designation initial and numbers. These might then be superseded by a notation system with a larger (and more useful) scope. So you might have a transition from a single lab's numbering system (JL135) to a state or national level system that can be used everywhere.

This happened when I made some antibodies. First names where vert functional in the lab, plate number, column number, row number: giving something like 3-2-7. useful in the lab for finding the particular clone of interest, but not great for a series of articles.
Therefore things are given more communicationally useful names, like zn-1 (zebrafish neuron (labeling antibody) #1).

To find the level at which the dolphin's name was designated, find an article talking able the dolphin and read the methods of that paper. That should indicate (probably some other place) where you can read about the nomenclature. There maybe a central website for the species with a database and lots of other information about what they are doing researchwise. If someone doing the research is some faculty member they probably have a website and would probably be willing to answer some reasonable questions from you.
I would guess that the names in the article were a higher level name (probably national) name which would be expected to be efficently projected to the media. But who knows the media will go for anything.
It might be more efficient to just search up a research database about the dolphin species. Maybe Google scholar. Its often beneficial in the grant process to have make public access and involvement available. Especially in asuch a charismatic species. So this might have gotten done.

 

[nomadreid]

Thanks for the effort and suggestions, Tom and Bill. I have taken a first step in the direction suggested by writing the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, and hope to get an answer within the next few days. If that reply is informative, ,I will post the answer here; otherwise I will continue with other agencies.

 

[nomadreid]

I finally received an answer from the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program! So, as promised, I quote it here (Excluding the letter formalities.)

"Thanks for reaching out and thank you for your interest in dolphins. We apologize for taking a few weeks to get back to you and appreciate your patience! (May-June are our most busy months for field work.)

There is no standard international naming convention for dolphins or marine mammals. Different research groups around the world use what is best and most efficient for them based on their species of interest and catalog size.

Our catalog, which includes more than 6,000 dolphins, uses a four-place code with numbers and letters that is unique to each individual dolphin, and every dolphin has a code. Numbers are given in serial order, with males getting even numbers and females getting odd numbers.

We also sometimes give dolphins nicknames (in addition to their catalog numbers) when we are inspired by some fin or behavioral feature, or to honor someone.

For example, when we conducted the first-ever dolphin health assessment for dolphins offshore of the West Florida Shelf in 2022, the first dolphin we tagged was nicknamed Genie, in honor of Dr. Eugenie Clark, the pioneering marine scientist who founded the research laboratory where the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program began in 1970. https://sarasotadolphin.org/eugenie-clark-offshore-dolphin/"