Every year Dolphin Discovery attends the IMATA (International Marine Animal Trainer’s Association) conference, an international event for marine mammal trainers where close to 700 people from all over the world share their outstanding work and experiences in various fields: research, medical care, education, training and technology.
Dolphin Discovery is the only Mexican company that have won awards in all categories in their 18 years of operation due to their strong investment and commitment to not only dolphins but manatees, sea lions and other species that live in their 13 world-wide locations.
In September, as the only representative of Mexico at the exhibition, Dolphin Discovery had the pleasure of presenting their work of investigation and training of our manatees which we hope will assist in detecting the age of the animals that appear on the coasts of Quintana Roo each year through a study of the molars of these marine mammals. Employing endoscopic techniques in collaboration with dentists, it is now possible to visualize the development of the teeth of the manatees and predict when they will fall out.
This study could be a great advance in the conservation of the species, each year dozens of manatees are stranded on the beach and that makes their age unknown. Determining age by the wear on the molars will be a great help in understanding even better the behaviour of these mammals. This is not the first investigative work with manatees by Dolphin Discovery, in 2009 we received the first prize in training for being the first company in the world to work on the mental stimulation of these animals, demonstrating that their learning ability was comparable to any other marine mammal. Dolphin Discovery has collaborated on numerous occasions with the network of organizations rescuing stranded manatees and in 2010 received 2 international awards in conservation and education for saving the life of Robert, a stranded manatee only 1 day old who now lives in the Dreams Puerto Aventuras location, along with Yoltzin, the first manatee born in Dolphin Discovery and the second in Mexico in 2007.
IMATA conference