About Us
MISSION and THE STATS BEHIND THE STORIESMissionWelcome to the tranquil venue of my west central Florida dolphin study area, my “Enchanted River.” I am fascinated by how nature has designed dolphins to live free at sea.
I conduct research under federal NOAA permits (required to study dolphins legally in the USA) for two reasons. One is to document the impacts of coastal construction on dolphins and identify best conservation practices. The other is to understand dolphin social behavior.
Stats behind the Stories - Survey the study area for dolphins 1-4 times/week from 2004 through current (2020)
- 418 dolphins individually identified
- 1565 surveys of the study area
- 14,000 encounters with dolphin groups
- Member Gulf of Mexico Dolphin Identification System (OBIS Seamap GoMDIS: http://seamap.env.duke.edu/photoid/gomdis)
- 470 articles on animal behavior published
My studies are scientific, but I exercise artistic license in my blogs and books to make them friendly. I replace dolphin scientific codes with human names because “Bruce” is friendlier than JP5BB-DBLU-4710. I replace scientific shorthand with everyday descriptive terms because BB & DD1 COA49 is a terrible way to open a great story about the amazing exchanges between these two but translated: “Bruce and Diana are friends, and were very close for that sizzling summer. Diana’s pregnancy was no surprise. However, Bruce’s behavior that fall was a complete surprise...”
Brief Professional Biography
Ann Charity Weaver is an animal behaviorist known as an ethologist, with specialties in primatology and marine mammalogy. She earned double bachelor’s degrees in Biology and English from the University of Minnesota in 1978, Special Master’s in Animal Behavior from San Diego State University in 1987, Ph.D. in psychology from Emory University in 1999 (focus: developmental psychobiology, conflict resolution, and peacemaking under Frans de Waal), and completed a post doc with the Developmental Psychobiologists Research Group from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She has worked with captive animals in 14 facilities, including USDA quarantine stations, Lincoln Park Zoo, Sea World San Diego, Yerkes Regional Primate Center, and the San Diego Zoo. She has 20 years of field experience studying free-ranging bottlenose dolphins and other marine animals in waters off San Diego, CA, Baja California Sur, North Carolina, Bahamas, and Florida. Her ongoing NOAA-permitted research on free-ranging bottlenose dolphins in west central Florida is in her 16th year. She was a professor and dean of research and statistics from University of Sarasota (later Argosy University). She has written 475 peer-reviewed and popular science articles on animal and dolphin behavior, and written 4 books: Good-natured Statistics in Everyday Language with Animal Behavior, Clinical Biostatistics and Epidemiology Made Ridiculously Simple with Steve Goldberg, MD., Secrets behind the Dolphin Smile – 25 Amazing Things Dolphins Do, and Why Dolphins Jump – A Picture Book of the Acrobats of the Sea.
Store
- Survey the study area for dolphins 1-4 times/week from 2004 through current (2020)
- 418 dolphins individually identified
- 1565 surveys of the study area
- 14,000 encounters with dolphin groups
- Member Gulf of Mexico Dolphin Identification System (OBIS Seamap GoMDIS: http://seamap.env.duke.edu/photoid/gomdis)
- 470 articles on animal behavior published
My studies are scientific, but I exercise artistic license in my blogs and books to make them friendly. I replace dolphin scientific codes with human names because “Bruce” is friendlier than JP5BB-DBLU-4710. I replace scientific shorthand with everyday descriptive terms because BB & DD1 COA49 is a terrible way to open a great story about the amazing exchanges between these two but translated: “Bruce and Diana are friends, and were very close for that sizzling summer. Diana’s pregnancy was no surprise. However, Bruce’s behavior that fall was a complete surprise...”
Brief Professional Biography
Ann Charity Weaver is an animal behaviorist known as an ethologist, with specialties in primatology and marine mammalogy. She earned double bachelor’s degrees in Biology and English from the University of Minnesota in 1978, Special Master’s in Animal Behavior from San Diego State University in 1987, Ph.D. in psychology from Emory University in 1999 (focus: developmental psychobiology, conflict resolution, and peacemaking under Frans de Waal), and completed a post doc with the Developmental Psychobiologists Research Group from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She has worked with captive animals in 14 facilities, including USDA quarantine stations, Lincoln Park Zoo, Sea World San Diego, Yerkes Regional Primate Center, and the San Diego Zoo. She has 20 years of field experience studying free-ranging bottlenose dolphins and other marine animals in waters off San Diego, CA, Baja California Sur, North Carolina, Bahamas, and Florida. Her ongoing NOAA-permitted research on free-ranging bottlenose dolphins in west central Florida is in her 16th year. She was a professor and dean of research and statistics from University of Sarasota (later Argosy University). She has written 475 peer-reviewed and popular science articles on animal and dolphin behavior, and written 4 books: Good-natured Statistics in Everyday Language with Animal Behavior, Clinical Biostatistics and Epidemiology Made Ridiculously Simple with Steve Goldberg, MD., Secrets behind the Dolphin Smile – 25 Amazing Things Dolphins Do, and Why Dolphins Jump – A Picture Book of the Acrobats of the Sea.