This month's speaker: Blair Irvine


HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH MARINE MAMMALS?
I was lucky. After graduating from college in 1965 as a Sociology major, a series of lucky breaks gave me the chance to work as a dolphin trainer for the Navy's man in the sea program. In 1970, I left to train a dolphin to ward off sharks as part of a research study in Sarasota, Florida. When it ended, we released the dolphin back into the wild, and that experience was enough to make me resolve to not work with captive dolphins again. It wasn't a tough choice, though, because I had started to study a local herd of wild dolphins in Sarasota in my spare time.

WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR EDUCATION?
Most of what I know about marine mammals I learned doing field work. Most of what I know about science I learned in Graduate school. First stop was at the University of Florida to get a Masters in Zoology in 1974. My thesis was on the diving physiology of water snakes.

THEN WHAT HAPPENED?
In 1974 I became a field biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service, studying the endangered manatee. I managed to continue the dolphin study in Sarasota on the side until about 1977, but it became increasingly more difficult due to a lack of funding. The project sort of went into torpor for several years, but we continued to go out to shoot pictures of dorsal fins whenever one of us was in Sarasota. In 1983 the study was rejuvenated by a friend and colleague, and he continues to lead it today.

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO OUR TOWN?
In 1981, I changed careers, and I went back to school, this time in Exercise Physiology. Then, I came here to finish my graduate work with a Doctorate in Health Education. I now do research and development to build multimedia programs that can help people be healthier.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO TALK ABOUT?
The study and the dolphin herd in Sarasota are alive and better than ever. The study is as near as you can get to laboratory research on wild animals. I spend about two weeks a year helping out. I'd like to tell the ENHS a bit of what we've learned over the last 30 years about a wild dolphin community.




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