Mobile Electrocardiogram Monitor for Bottlenose Dolphins in the Marine Environment

As dolphins managed in professional care are living longer, diseases associated with aging are becoming more frequently encountered, including cardiac disease. One of the major challenges facing marine mammal clinicians is the lack of reliable in-water ECG recording systems, particularly while the animals are swimming unencumbered and untethered by wires. Currently, cardiac health monitoring relies on auscultation, echocardiography, and the use of modified veterinary ECG equipment originally designed for land animals.  QUASAR and National Marine Mammal Foundation (NMMF) will develop a wearable dolphin ECG system that will enable increased cardiac monitoring in dolphins swimming freely in their natural marine environment.  This system will leverage QUASAR’s capacitive sensors that can record ECG underwater without the need for waterproofing and have been previously demonstrated to record ECG in dolphins in an animal transport container (ATC), and recently embedded into a diving belt designed for monitoring ECG in human divers at down to 100 m depth.  Future developments could benefit other marine mammals, in managed care as well as in wildlife conservation settings.