Behavior and Threat Profile
Bottlenose dolphins are resident in Florida's inshore and offshore waters year-round. They follow boats. They surf bow wakes. They appear in channels between Keys islands and in the harbour approaches to coastal cities.
In Leonida they are the coastal water equivalent of what birds are on land: visible ambient life that confirms the environment is functioning. A dolphin surfacing alongside a speedboat in the Keys channel is the kind of detail that makes the game world feel larger than its boundaries.
They are not interactive in a meaningful game sense. They do not attack. They do not provide resources. They surface, they breathe, they follow the wake for a period and then they do not. That is exactly what real dolphins do and exactly what makes the detail correct.