News

On the 17th of May 2024, we organized our first “Wildlife Photography Competition”. We recieved many pictures from kids and teenagers. Now, we are pleased to announce our Youth Wildlife Photography Competition winners! We were thrilled to see such a high level of enthusiasm and creativity among the students who participated🦎⛰. Each submission showcased a unique perspective on the beauty of nature, and we were truly impressed by the talent and dedication displayed by the applicants. We believe that every participant deserves recognition for their efforts, therefore we have compiled a photography e-book featuring all submissions from the competition, this can be viewed using the following links: English: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/36e36985d2.html Montenegrin: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/08a24923e0.html 🐬🐋 Together, we can make a meaningful difference in protecting our planet and its precious wildlife! We express our graditute to one of our volunteers Alice Milner for organizing this successfull and amazing photography competition! We would like to thank her for setting up the contest, getting in contact with schools, making the photobook and all other affairs surroundings this contest

Ever wondered if dolphins have accents? Well so did we! Understanding animal behaviour can be key when it comes to trying to conserve animals. If we can understand the context in which an animal is producing a vocalisation then we can better understand if they are feeding, socialising and even if they might be stressed by the presence of humans. Despite our rapid advances in being able to record the vocalisations of underwater animals, studies are generally confined to particular areas and prior to DMAD setting up Montenegro Dolphin Research there had been no published acoustic data on bottlenose dolphins at all. In recent years, DMAD have been focusing particularly on Boka Kotorska bay in the north of the country where dolphins are regularly sighted. We wanted to publish the information that we collected but also compare it to other data and so we partnered up with an organisation collecting data in Italy. We looked at the whistle characteristics of bottlenose dolphin whistles in Montenegro for the first time and compared them to these Italian recordings to assess differences. We found similar characteristics for 6 different whistle types between Boka Kotorska, Montenegro and Taranto Bay, Italy despite them being separated by the Adriatic Sea. Due to the small sample size we need far more data before we can draw any meaningful scientific conclusions, however this work represents an important start, particularly for Montenegro where this is the first peer-reviewed acoustic information published. You can read the full open-access article here: https://frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2023.1099576/full… DMAD are really grateful to everyone involved in this incredibly fruitful international collaboration!

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My first real field experience in Marine/Conservation Biology My name is Aditya Swami, and I had long since known that my true passion lies in protecting our oceans and the animals within. Having completed my Bachelor of Science in Zoology, I decided to take a gap year to gain some practical knowledge through field experience. I found a posting for Scientific Research Intern from DMAD marine mammals research association on the Erasmus intern website late one night and ever since then I have thanked all the stars for that decision. I’m going to be honest; I was extremely homesick for the first few days in Montenegro. So much so, that with every second passing I wished I was back home in India. But my very first moment working with everyone at DMAD changed everything. With DMAD, it never felt as though I was truly at work. Well, that’s misleading. We did do quite a bit of work around the clock, but it never really felt like a stereotypical job. It was fun, it was breezy, it was research-oriented and it was so, so self-fulfilling. That’s how I knew I was doing something I loved. At DMAD we have 2 kinds of workdays, one is the classic office day and the other would be the survey days. The office days never felt strenuous because they were always filled with great camaraderie, laughter, joy and yes, primarily with research paper readings, GIS and Photo Identification lessons and consequent data analysis on these platforms. The survey days could be land-based or on exceptionally lucky days, boat-based. The land surveys are methodical, meticulous and well-planned, comprising of staring at different parts of the lush blue Adriatic Sea from a vantage point for 3 hours or more. The cherry on the icing of the cake; there are quite a few Bottlenose Dolphins to locate, photograph, research and enjoy. The boat surveys are even more magical. Being on the water for 4-5 hours experiencing the pleasure of researching the dolphins in their natural habitat is a feeling I cannot put into words. Although I had the opportunity of joining only the one boat survey, it was one of the best experiences of my life and I was immediately wanting more. I could tell you so many reasons why you should take the leap of faith and pursue this internship with DMAD. Oh so many reasons. All the scenic and picturesque views of the Adriatic Sea, the wonderful research initiative, the actual research with the theodolite, GIS and Photo-ID, the intern house, all of these are so memorable. However one thing stands above all, unparalleled in my books. It’s the opportunity to have gotten to work, live and spend every moment with some of the most genuine and wonderful people I have ever had the privilege of meeting. People who genuinely care deeply about marine animals and the ocean. People who take on interns so often and train them all year round despite having so much on their plate. People who take the time to go out to local schools to reach out to impressionable youth about the troubles facing our oceans, to get them interested in marine conservation at a ripe young age. People who will make Montenegro your home for however long you are there. That’s my experience with DMAD for you. It ended up being only a 2 month stay, but I wish every day that it could have been for longer.

Collaboration in Montenegro between DMAD, MDR and Pelagic Tours. As many of you know DMAD Montenegro works closely together with Montenegro Dolphin Research (MDR) and we are happy to announce that we are getting a new Partner; Pelagic Dolphin Tours, Responsible Dolphin Watch Tours! We are very excited about this partnership, not only will it help us with our research, but it will also greatly benefit our outreach and education efforts. Next to the fact that Pelagic Dolphin Tours will help us personally and our interns to perform boat surveys, they have also agreed to organise special tours including our surveys, both land and boat surveys. Next time you are in Montenegro, near Kotor you can book a Survey Tour and all proceeds will be donated to MDR to further it’s position and research. These new tours will be called Scientist for a Day and it means we will take people along to experience how it is to perform a survey and how to collect data. More importantly you can take your stand for our blue planet now, simply by booking a Responsible Dolphin Watch Tour with Pelagic Dolphin Tours. And this all while learning how we perform our surveys, about the dolphin watch guidelines, how to make a photo-ID picture, everything about our sightings network and so much more. Not to forget we will just have a gorgeous day out on or around the crystal clear waters, the amazing coastline of Montenegro, the mountains and this all while we look for dolphins. Creating memories for a lifetime! Despite the fact that Pelagic Dolphin Tours organises the tours, we ask everyone to contact us to find out more or to go to the following page Scientist for a Day This is mainly because all tours are subjected to availability, both the availability of space and the availability of our researchers for supervision, and off course the weather. There is even more, because Pelagic Dolphin Tours is also open to organising educational trips for schools, which is such an important way to show the children how amazing the local marine live is. Next to that, it is just a lot off fun and we might be able to inspire a future generation of marine scientist, what more can we ask for. So next time you are in Montenegro, Come and Meet the Team. Thank you and I hope to see you soon!Thalia de Haas (MSc, Researcher and Volunteer coordinator)

Önceki Sonraki Hello, I am Olivier Eikelenboom.  I am from the Netherlands and I study at a University of Applied Sciences called Van Hall Larenstein in Leeuwarden. Here I study the course coastal marine management.    Since 7 september, I have joined DMAD in Montenegro to get more experience about doing research on dolphins and public outreach. I have stayed with DMAD for two months. During these two months I have experienced so many amazing things.    During my stay with DMAD I learned how to do land surveys with the theodolite, which was quite difficult in the beginning, but got the hang of it at the end. Even though we did not see a lot of dolphins it was very fun to do. I also learned how to do Photo-ID using Discovery. I think Photo-ID is very interesting and Discovery makes it even better.   Not only did I do research I also did public outreach, which I enjoyed so much as well. So I gave three presentations in Montenegro. Two of the presentations I give in the Arcadia Academy, the school of Doga (Aylin her son). This was really nice, because the kids were really fun and interested in what I had to say. The last presentation was given to a Turkish school and that was online.    To end this, I want to thank everyone that I have met during my stay here, so Aylin, Selina and Doga.  Thanks to all the DMAD team, you rock!

Önceki Sonraki DMAD has run two different presentations for our youth in Montenegro, organised three surveys in two different countries and joined ACCOBAMS Technical workshop-From Science to Policy. Being a small NGO or having small resources never prevents you from aiming for the Big Blue Changes.  Join our team and let’s take our share of the protection of our blue planet together!

Hello, I am Khawla Bou Ali from Tunisia, a master degree student at the University of Sfax, currently working on my master project with DMAD.  Since early June, I have joined the DMAD family in Antalya, for my master thesis project It’s almost five months now I experienced a lot, my first boat survey will stay always in my mind because not only I met the dolphins for the first time, but also I listen to their sweet conversations underwater thanks to the hydrophones we had. In addition, I had the chance to join the different projects, Istanbul and Dilek peninsula surveys where we spotted different dolphins species. My project goal: is to study and estimate the population size of the bottlenose dolphin population in Antalya bay within a photo-identification study. Since 2015 and 2016 many dolphins were spotted and photographed by DMAD, we have so many pictures of our Antalya catalogue! Stay tuned!! I want to close by sending my warm greetings to my lovely friends that I had the chance to work with them during this experience Belen, Evie, Martina and Georgina. Thanks to my supervisor Dr Aylin Akkaya for your guidance and advice. Thanks to all DMAD Team.

DMAD presented three different articles on cetaceans from Montenegro and Turkey to underline the decline that the populations are facing within these data deficient regions. The related publications can be reached from our website.

DMAD has completed it’s summer survey effort within the undiscovered waters of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The East Med surprised us with over ten encounters of sperm whales, with newborns, more than 20 encounters of dolphins, with pink bellies, and the rare species of leatherback turtles. Our world, despite its unregulated and uncontrolled human pressure, is full with life. Take your place and help us to create a change.