News

”Conservation is a really delicate subject everybody needs to be aware about” Hello everyone! My name is Daniela, I’m a 25 years old girl from Bari, Italy. I graduated in Biology in 2017 and now I’m studying Environmental Biology for my master degree. I’m going to be here in Bar for the next two months, as a part of my thesis but also as a great opportunity for my growth as an individual and as a biologist. I’ve always loved animals and nature so it made perfect sense for me to follow this passion in my study path, and I fall in love with them more and more as I’m going on. I’ve been camping all my life and I’ve always lived by the sea, so I really can’t imagine my life away from it.  I’ve had experience dolphin watching and also a little bit with sea turtles Caretta caretta in Italy, but I really think marine mammals are what I love the most, and here I am, trying to give my contribution studying them and protecting them, while learning all I can from this amazing team. I would love to work in this scientific field in the future, but also to spread as much knowledge as I can amongst people, because ecology needs every single one of us to understand and make some kind of change, and conservation is a really delicate subject everybody needs to be aware about. Think global, act local.

”MDR can allow me to learn and understand how to work in the field of marine biology” I’m Elena Milanesi, I am 22 years old and i come from Milan. I’m at the end of my 3rd year of Environmental Sciences at the University of Milano Bicocca and what fascinates me most is the study of the sea, its preservation and in particularly the conservation of marine vertebrates animals that lives there. I’m here like a volunteer of Montenegro Dolphin Research, because this project can allow me to learn and understand how to work in the field of marine biology, in particularly with marine vertebrates. I’m particularly attracted by the study of conservation and research of marine mammals, like dolphin, for this reason I chose DMAD association, with them I hope to learn to do a lot of things and improve my skills which can be useful for my academic career and above all for my future job.

”I Found Montenegro Dolphin Research. And stars aligned” After working as an interpreter for 9 years I decided to change my life and entered the university again to get my second education in biology. I made this decision after watching Dolphin’s tale movie. In order to obtain some practical knowledge and understand what is day-to-day conservation work I started to look for volunteer projects and found Montenegro Dolphin Research. And stars aligned. This project is such a great and rare opportunity to learn how to actually save marine mammals while still studying; to understand what might my future work be like and to get skills of data analysis used in every research nowadays. Hope to learn as much as possible during my stay in Montenegro and to see some dolphins up close, of course!

“I’m excited to join the Montenegro Dolphin Research team” I’m Xenia, I was born in Russia and grew up in Germany where I used to work as a Biostatistician. I studied Mathematics with biology as a minor subject and since a young age I was fascinated with whales and dolphins. Posters covered my walls and seeing dolphins for the first time in real life; jumping out of the water and following the boat; is still a memorable event. As a way to explore a possible new career path, I’m excited to join the Montenegro Dolphin Research team and looking forward to gaining a better understanding of marine biology and the related tasks and hope my statistical knowledge will be of help analyzing the data. 

Community day – 25th May 2019 DMAD will be having a wonderful beach cleaning event that is full of arts and crafts from recycled materials, face paint, comic colorings and a tale about marine littering. Everyone is invited to Barka Cafe this Saturday to spend some lovely time with us and take action for the awareness regarding our planet. 

GGDS SUMMER 2019! The seasonal offshore expedition of Marine Mammals Research Association will take place on July 2019, in Marmaris, Turkey for this year. If you want to join to this great adventure drop us an email and reserve your spot amongst our team. The survey will cover training and practice that consists of passive acoustic monitoring, sailing techniques, data collection and observation.  For more information about the Giant Guardians of the Deep Seas Research efforts, have a look at our projects here. To apply, please send your CV and cover letter to [email protected]

May 2019 saw the Montenegro Dolphin Research team hosting members of the local community for a community day in our offices in Bar! We would like to thank everyone who came out and joined us to make our community day event so successful! We had a great time with arts and crafts in the morning and some informative presentations throughout the day. Missed out? Don’t worry we will be running more Community Days later in the year with lots more activities!! Keep updated on our facebook page for news of upcoming events.

DMAD forms new partnership with Cyan Planet We are happy to announce our new partnership and collaboration with ”Cyan Planet” ! For the next couple of months, the resourceful team of Cyan Planet will be busy with creating a VR experience about a day in a marine mammal researcher’s life where you will be able to experience it through the wonders of technology. Curious? Stay tuned for this upcoming great project! 

”The only way to reach successful conservation in the long term” Hello everyone! My name is Kim, I’m from Germany and 24 years old. Currently I am doing my master’s degree in Marine Biological Resources and in order to gain some practical experience I will be working as a volunteer for Montenegro Dolphin Research for the next month and a half. My fascination for cetaceans originates back to when I was five years old and for the first time saw the skeleton of a huge blue whale in a small museum in the Netherlands. Twenty years, a bachelor’s degree in Biology and a short career as assistant guide for a dolphin watching company later, I am happy to finally get to know the everyday work of a marine mammal researcher. Beside the training in the field methods and data analysis tools, such as ArcGIS and Discovery software, I hope to learn more about public outreach and how to engage and encourage people in doing good for the Montenegrin dolphins and the environment. In my second week I took part in a field expedition to Albania, and while we were surveying many people approached us, interested in what we were doing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t speak the language to explain exactly what we were doing. Nevertheless, experiences like this motivate me a lot to pursue not a purely scientific career, but to try and combine research with education in my later work because this is in my eyes the only way to reach successful conservation in the long term.  

DMAD is an exceptional opportunity for me…  As a first year M. Sc. student in Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution in France, and coming from Reunion Island, I have always been in touch with and fascinated by nature. We have an extremely rich fauna that we need to protect from the natural risks and human pressure that threaten the survival of endangered species. I am passionate about marine mammals, and working at DMAD is an exceptional opportunity for me to explore this passion further. One of my dearest wishes is to get actively involved in real world projects.  « What you do make a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make » -Jane Goodall.