TEXAS MARINE MAMMAL: Information on how to save 
dolphins in Texas ... on Passport to Texas.
____________________________________________________________
 
 PTT from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the SFWR Program

More than one-hundred marine mammals a year strand on 
Texas beaches and most of them die. The Texas Marine 
Mammal Stranding Network tries to figure out why. The 
network covers the entire Texas Coastline in efforts to 
save the few mammals that strand alive. 

Even though we're based in Galveston, we have six different 
regions across the state. When we do get animals in, we'll rehab 
them either in Corpus Christi or in Galveston depending on 
where they strand. (00:08) 

Lindsey Godlove is a volunteer with the Network. We 
caught up with her at Parks and Wildlife Expo.

We do get, just mostly dolphins and whales. Not the bigger 
whales, we get some of the smaller ones. We've had sperm 
whales before and kogias, which are pygmy sperm whales. The 
most of what we get, ninety percent, are bottle nosed dolphins. 
We get some interesting species like striped dolphins or rough 
tooth dolphins, things like that. (00:16) 

The Network believes dolphins and whales can tell us 
about what is going on in the oceans.

Dolphins and whales, they're really good bio-indicators of 
what's going on in the oceans. Since, obviously, that's their 
environment. We can kind of tell when they do come in and we 
run tests on them maybe what bio-toxins and things like that 
are going on in the ocean and that can help us in other areas of 
research. We work with other agencies to help figure out what's 
going on in the ocean at that time. (00 :18)

Learn how to volunteer with the Marine Mammal 
Stranding Network at passporttotexas.org.

That's our show ... the SFWR Program supports our series 
 ... we had research and writing help from Kate Lipinski... 
For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti. 

Total sound bite time:		 0:42.0
Maximum Script time:		 0:43.0 Suggested show time: 85.0 = 1:25