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Friends Supported Programs
» NCMM License Plate
Application for a NCMM License Plate
To Get a “Protect Wild Dolphins”
License Plate
Visit your local
NC DMV License Plate Agency
or contact the DMW at
919-861-3575
Download PDF
application
The North Carolina Maritime Museum has a license plate program with a great conservation message. By
purchasing the special "Protect Wild Dolphin" NC Maritime Museum special license plate you will
be:
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Supporting the museum's research, conservation, and education
programs,
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Demonstrating your interest in protecting bottlenose dolphins and
their habitat, and
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Making your car look better!
Bottlenose dolphins along the east coast of the US are severely and negatively impacted by human activities. After a die-off that killed up to half of the population, the National Marine Fisheries Service in 1993 listed them as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Since then, dolphins have washed ashore dead with evidence of having been struck by boats, entangled in fishing nets, and with foreign material (human trash) in their stomachs. Yet little basic information that is critical for their conservation is known such as reproductive rates, residency and migration patterns, and habitat needs.
The NCMM license plate proceeds help protect and increase our understanding of bottlenose dolphins that frequent the North Carolina coast. Revenues from the plate sales will go the Friends of the Museum to support the education, conservation, and research programs of the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort.
Keith Rittmaster, Natural Science Curator at the North Carolina Maritime Museum, has been studying the bottlenose dolphins in Beaufort since 1985. He and his wife Victoria Thayer, research assistant Nan Bowles, program assistant Allen Brooks, and several volunteers use photographs of the dolphins' dorsal fins to identify the individual dolphins - a process known as "photo-identification". The scars and notches that the dolphins acquire on their dorsal fins are used to track the movements, associations, and birth rates of the known dolphins. "We are also learning about the movements of the dolphins in waters beyond Beaufort by regularly collaborating with other researchers along the coast," says Rittmaster. He has matched dolphins identified in Beaufort with photographs from study sites as far as central Florida to the south, Virginia Beach to the north, and many sites in between. This collaboration is critical to the study, and researchers from the Virginia Marine Science Museum, National Marine Fisheries Service, Duke Marine Lab, Nags Head Dolphin Watch and UNC-Wilmington all share photographs and data.
Rittmaster hopes to learn more about dolphin behavior and human impact on dolphins and the environment. Sale of the dolphin plates benefit both this project, and environmental studies and educational field trips that are part of the NC Maritime Museum's Cape Lookout Studies Program
capelookoutstudies.org
. For each $30 plate purchased, the Friends of the Museum support group will receive $20. To personalize a dolphin plate requires an additional $20.
To Get a “Protect Wild Dolphins”
License Plate
Visit your local
NC DMV License Plate Agency
or contact the DMW at
919-861-3575
Download PDF
application
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