(For our overseas readers, Peoria, Illinois is a kind of representative midwestern city. When making a controversial movie, Hollywood producers would ask themselves "Will it play in Peoria?" Dr. Wells and I lived near each other in Sarasota, Florida when we were in high school and attended the same Marine Biology class. Dr. Wells has devoted his whole life to the compassionate yet scientific study of dolphins. He has the best job in the world AFAIC. He knows everything there is to know about dolphins, and I know the rest. – Moderator)
Ex-Peorian relishing life with dolphins
He's spent 40 years of his life studying wild dolphins
By SCOTT HILYARD (shilyard@pjstar.com)
Journal Star
Posted Jan 23, 2011 @ 11:05 PM
PEORIA —
The question is obvious:
How does Randy Wells, a person born and raised in as aggressively landlocked a region of the country as is central Illinois, grow up to be one of the planet's leading experts on wild bottlenose dolphins?
The answer, at least the beginning of an answer, is even simpler then one might guess:
You move from Peoria to the gulf coast of Florida at age 16.
"I was naturally interested in science and science fairs in school, in marine biology and oceanography more specifically," said Wells, who left Richwoods High School after his sophomore year when his family moved to Siesta Key, Fla., part of Sarasota, Fla. "I was fortunate enough to be able to turn those interests into a lifelong study of marine animals, particularly the bottlenose dolphins of Sarasota Bay."
Peoria native Wells, who is 57, coordinates the Chicago Zoological Society's Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, a program that includes the world's longest-running study of a population of wild dolphins. When he started studying the dolphins of Sarasota Bay as a high school intern at Mote Marine Laboratory in 1970, most of what was known about the marine mammals was learned from the study of captive dolphins. Although he has worked in other parts of the country (he returned to Sarasota full-time in 1992), Wells is now observing several generations of Sarasota Bay dolphins that trace their lineages back to the dolphins he first observed 40 years ago.
"We were the first to determine that dolphins are residents of bays," Wells said. "When we learned that the community of dolphins were in fact long term residents of the bay, well, that set the stage for everything else."
The program has observed about 160 dolphins in Sarasota Bay, another 3,200 up and down the west coast of Florida. Many are named by staff. Some creatively, like Nick Lowe, a dolphin with low nick on the trailing edge of its fin. Some not, like F325, the mother of a dolphin the program once captured in order to save its life.
"We caught the mother and her offspring, Nellie, because Nellie had some sort of synthetic line wrapped around her body behind her head that was embedding in her blubber. Entanglement is the worst way an animal can die," Wells said. "We were able to remove the line and Nellie has healed up perfectly."
Despite their intelligence and the fact that a dolphin just flat-out looks like it's enjoying life, Wells said reality for the animals is far different.
"That they look like they're smiling is a fact of their anatomy, not of their lives," Wells said. "Their lives can be a little rough."
Boat propellers, sharks and a shrinking and degraded habitat brought about by human beings are all environmental hardships for the dolphins, animals that can reach nine feet long and weigh 600 pounds. The animals are efficient in their murky seawater environment, using their whistles as voices to communicate among the dolphin community and echo location to keep track of what's in the water for hundreds of meters.
"They are truly remarkable animals," said Wells, who heads a team of 70 researchers, but now finds himself analyzing data and administrating, rather than riding in a boat in the bay observing dolphins.
Wells takes every opportunity to frame the dolphin program in terms of its efforts toward conservation.
"Our main function besides tracking the dolphin is trying to educate people to make better environmental decisions," he said. "We see the future of nature as the most important issue in the world."
In the middle of a lively phone conversation recently with Wells, the connection fell atypically silent for five, 10 seconds.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I got distracted. I just saw a dolphin jumping out in the bay next to a crab boat," said Wells, revealing two interesting aspects about his job in Florida in two simple sentences.
One: After 40 years of marine research, the sight of a solitary bottlenose dolphin going airborne above the surface of Sarasota Bay still renders Randy Wells reflexively awestruck and momentarily speechless.
And, two: His office has a pretty nice view.
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