POD was founded by Toni Frohoff, Ph.D., renowned wildlife author, science-based advocate, and marine mammal behavioral biologist.  With the help of POD’s students, volunteers and extended community, Dr. Frohoff is focusing over 25 years of international expertise on a critically challenged and dangerously small population of coastal bottlenose dolphins off the Santa Barbara and extended California coastline.

The coastal bottlenose dolphins in Santa Barbara and surrounding waters need our help now. These dolphins are now facing a myriad of unprecedented environmental challenges, many of which we share with them in our coastal community.  With their very small population (perhaps as few as 350 individuals along the entire California coast), dwindling pod size (a sign of stress and challenges to survival), lesions on their skin related to contaminants, severely high contaminant levels in their bodies, and exceptionally high risk from to additional coastal environmental threats, these animals both deserve and need our support.

POD is a priority project of the long-standing & respected, all-volunteer “umbrella” 501(c)3 organization, TerraMar Research. Our work has been featured in Science, Time Magazine, the cover of the New York Times Magazine; National Geographic, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and BBC Television and documentaries, and numerous other national and international publications.