Narwhals are endemic to the Arctic where they divide their time between offshore ice-covered winter habitats and coastal ice-free summering areas. They show little flexibility in migration routes and their remarkable fidelity to summering areas is used to discriminate stocks. Low and declining abundance estimates, combined with increasing catch levels, indicate that several stocks in Greenland are at risk of extirpation.

The staff, students, and collaborating scientists of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP) engage in research, conservation, and education/outreach activities to benefit cetaceans in Sarasota Bay, Florida, and elsewhere around the world.  The SDRP conducts the world’s longest-running study of a wild dolphin population, initiated in 1970.  Information available from five decades of research on the multi-decadal, multi-generational, year-round resident community of individually identifiable bottlenose dolphins of Sarasota Bay established this as a unique natural laboratory for learning