“Welcome everyone to our GH Audubon Dolphin program.  Before I introduce our speaker, I would like to tell you a little about Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute where Steve Burton, our speaker today, has worked for 15 years.  

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I feel a personal connection to Harbor Branch having visited the campus often with my mother who volunteered at the Discovery Center working with children for some twenty plus years.  And my dad’s extensive shell collection resides in the children’s area.

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Harbor Branch, founded in 1971, and now part of Florida Atlantic University is just down the road off Hwy 1 in northern Ft. Pierce.  The 144-acre campus is a research facility into all things concerning the ocean and lagoon, marine ecosystem conservation, ocean health, aquaculture and food security and ocean engineering and technology. 

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A mission of Harbor Branch is education and outreach.  There are public tours of the campus and a pontoon boat tour of the Indian River Lagoon.  Last year I attended their Ocean Science Lecture Series on Weds at 4pm from Jan through March.  These lectures, which are free, are a wonderful resource to learn about our marine environment.  You just need to register for the series.  Some of the fascinating things  I learned about were algal blooms, seagrass, exploration of deep waters in Puerto Rico, whales that ink, and the stranding and population assessment of dolphins and marine mammals in Florida.

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Which brings us to our speaker today, Steve Burton.  I am so pleased to introduce the director of the stranding and population team at Harbor Branch.  Mr. Burton started his work with dolphins as a trainer in Hawaii.  This love of dolphins led him to degrees from Hawaii Pacific Un and Florida Atlantic University where he now works, a career spanning nearly 30 years of marine mammal research.”