Comparative Survivability of Tursiops Neonates from Three U.S. Institutions for the Decades 1990-1999 and 2000-2009

Animal managers from three institutions that hold Tursiops truncatus participated in a workshop directed at documenting survivability of Tursiops neonates (birth to 30 d of age) in their managed populations. Key information was generated for the period 1990 through 2009 for the three organizations. Included in the findings are (1) documentation of the total live births, total fatalities, and causal factors of neonate losses; (2) recommendations for optimizing animal management procedures through standardized monitoring and husbandry intervention techniques, resulting in the best possible survivability of neonates; and (3) comparison of neonate survivability between the years 1990 to 1999 (78.2% of live births) and 2000 to 2009 (90.6% of live births), the latter decade representing progressing improvements in survivability resulting from recommended animal management procedures.