An Atlantic spotted dolphin rescued off Key West and treated by a mammal rescue group in Key Largo will be brought back to the Southernmost City today to prepare for his release back into the wild.

The dolphin dubbed "Cutter" has been rehabilitating for nearly three months at the Marine Mammal Conservancy and is now healthy enough to be put back among his own kind, the nonprofit's President Robert Lingenfelser said.

Cutter will be placed in an enclosed pen in the ship basin at the Truman Waterfront, next to the Coast Guard cutter Mohawk and the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg. The public is welcome to visit, but will be asked to remain by an information tent that will be set up there.

"He's doing well, and he has passed all of his tests," Lingenfelser said.

Local charter fishing and dolphin eco-tour boat operators and pilots have been scouting the waters off Key West for pods of spotted dolphins, which are usually found farther offshore. A pod was spotted on Thursday near the Marquesas Keys, Lingenfelser said.

"They have been out there. We just have to find them and get him to them," he said.

An exact release date has not been determined, but will be within the week, Lingenfelser added.

Young rescued marine mammals typically are not released, because they need their mothers. But Cutter is old enough to survive in the wild, experts say.

Once released, Cutter will be tracked by biologist Denise Herzing and a team from the Wild Dolphin Project and the Marine Mammal Conservancy, Lingenfelser said. The Wild Dolphin Project, for which Herzing is the research director, is a scientific research organization that studies a specific pod of free-ranging Atlantic spotted dolphins.

If the pod rejects Cutter, he may be recaptured, Marine Mammal Conservancy officials said.

The 2- to 3-year-old mammal was rescued in February close to the Key West Coast Guard Station. He was starving and had liver problems, experts said.

tohara@keysnews.com