DOLPHIN PANEL / SIGN DEDICATED
February 17, 2020
On February 6, 2020, at 3 pm, Cedar Key ‘s most recent educational panel was dedicated at the corner of G and First Streets. There to mark the panel’s advent were University of Florida Institute for Food and Agricultura Shellfish Services Agent Leslie Sturmer, Cedar Key Library Manager and Dolphin Project Molly Jubitz, Cedar Key Friends of the Library Board member Joyce DeHaan, and founder and president of the Cedar Key Dolphin Project Dr. Stefanie Gazda,.
The dolphin panel is one in a series already designed, constructed, and strategically located to educate visitors about the Cedar Key area’s riches. A horseshoe crab panel resides at the Cedar Key Marina; a Section 29 panel is on the Earl Starnes Overlook in Cemetery Point; several crab panels are located on Third and B Streets.
This educational panel features he Bottlenose Dolphins of Cedar Key. Sponsored by the Friends of the Library, the panel was funded by a gift in memory of longtime resident Melinda Barbour. According to DeHaan and Jubitz, Barbour was an independent businesswoman devoted to conservation and desirous of promoting strong, able women.
Surmer and her sturdy crew dug the holes, loaded the cement and the posts into the ground, and installed the panel earlier in the week.
Dr. Gazda’s study of bottlenose dolphins in Cedar Key began in 2001. In 2016, the Cedar Key Dolphin Project became its own non-profit educational organization. Its mission, according to its website, https://www.cedarkeydolphinproject.org/ , follows: “We are working to preserve and protect the dolphins of Cedar Key and the surrounding Nature Coast of Florida, while learning as much as we can about this species. The dolphins of Cedar Key hold a wealth of information and may provide valuable information on the health of the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico. Dolphins are a long-lived species and as a result are suited to long-term research studies.”
“It is fantastic that the panel is here!” said Gazda. Sturmer pointed out that the panel “provides information consistent wit the other panels and also tells the reader what he can do for dolphins.”
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