FISHERY BULLETIN VOL 77. NO 



28° 10' 



05 



28' 



55' 



50' 



27° 45' - 



50' 



15 



16. 



17- 



MELBOURNE 



18 



19- 



45' 



40 



SHORE STATION 



SEBASTIAN INLET 



80" 20 



FlOL'KK 6. — Indian and Banana Rivers. F"la . indication locations of transects 1.5-26 and sightings of West Indian manatees. 

 Numbers by the symbols indicate estimated numbers of individuals. 



animals milling within Fort Pierce Inlet, a group 

 of two adult.s moving against the tide, and two 

 ,separate individuals moving with the tide. 



Like the dolphins', manatees' movements ap- 

 peared unrelated to tidal flow within the channels. 



DISCXSSION 



Dnlphins 

 The estimated number iil dolphm.^ in the river at 



the time of the survey 1 438 ± 127) wasconsiderabl.v 

 smaller than nni' wnuld have expected for the area 

 based on the accounts of Cato and Prochaska 

 I I97Ki and Orr (see fontnute 2i and on discussicms 

 with fishermen and other residents of the area. 

 However, the densities of dolphins observed were 

 generally much higher than those reported from 

 aerial surveys of the waters of .Alabama, .Missis- 

 sippi, and Louisiana (Leatherwood et al. 1978) 

 and the west coast of Florida (Odell and 



54 



