News

A land survey in the eyes of our interns: Noemi Seeing dolphins during a land survey for the first time was just as exciting as it was overwhelming. It was an early morning survey at our station in Kakrc and the first thing that caught our attention was actually not seeing the individual, but hearing its blow as it came up for air. As a team of four interns we managed to track its movements with the binoculars and the theodolite, while writing down its behaviour in the data sheet and the coordinates of its location in the field laptop. You as citizen can help us out in a very similar way when you see a dolphin in Montenegro. You can become a citizen scientist! Tell us about the day, time and location when you see a dolphin. If possible take a picture and send it to us. Could you make out how many dolphins there were? What direction were they swimming? Anything could help us and our research which is vital to protect this wonderful species that is also very important for the ecosystem.

On May 13th Turkey coast, Mersin area Coastguard has seen flowing fin whale body at the sea surface. Unfortunately, this is the third stranding beginning of 2021.  The fin whales one of the marine mammal species known to exist in the Eastern Mediterranean. Our knowledge still less about their population rates and movement in Eastern Mediterranean. We need long term research to understand the marine mammals of the East. The major threats they faced of human origin and these are; marine pollution, climate change, noise pollution and collision with ships. Photo credit: Koray Ünlü

Dolphins’ presentation for the NVO Nasa akcija / NGO Our Action in Tivat, Montenegro Our DMAD Team in Montenegro were invited by the NVO Nasa akcija / NGO Our Action to realize a presentation about cetaceans in the City Hall of Tivat, Montenegro. First, our interns prepared an activity with all the participants in which the idea was to learn about some marine animals by imitating them according to their movements or sounds. Then, after having everyone attention, Claudia and Laura, interns of DMAD, were in charge of leading the presentation. First, they talked about the two big groups of cetaceans, some characteristics of species that can be found here in Montenegro like the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), and current threats that are affecting their populations. Subsequently, they highlighted the importance of dolphins for marine ecosystems and why cetaceans research realize by DMAD is important for the conservation of marine mammals. Last but not least, they invited all the participants to follow our social media for more information about current encounters we are having in our surveys and future activities. Also, the participants were encouraged of becoming “citizen scientists” by sending to us pictures of the sightings they may have in the future with cetaceans with some extra information like date and time, coordinates of the sighting place, and number of individuals.  

We continue to clean the shores of Montenegro with NVO Nasa Akcija Our collaboration in Montenegro, NVO Nasa Akcija members and our team met on Sunday morning at Plavi Horizonti beach. We did a great cleaning with social distancing. We will share the next days with our followers in Montenegro.

Exciting week at DMAD! Exciting week at DMAD! Three new interns joined our team in Montenegro: Noemi from Germany, Natalia from Colombia and Cedric from Belgium. A calm first day at the office was not an option, as they were immediately assigned to a boat survey. And what a survey it was! Calm water, sunny weather, many dolphins, and… boat problems. At the end of the survey, the boat decided to take a nap, leaving them stuck in the middle of the bay. Panic? Not at all! Maybe a little bit… Luckily, a good soul in a very luxurious yacht noticed them and immediately realized his duty! He came over, made sure that they were okay and threw a lifeline. They were towed to Portonovi, probably the most exclusive port of the entire country. The arrival of a tiny survey boat must have been a funny sight, being surrounded by massive yachts. They all had a good laugh and eventually made it home safely. It just goes to show that being a marine researcher is never boring and you never know what to expect when you’re out in the sea! Stay tuned for more stories!

The 2021 IEEE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON Metrology for the Sea will take place for the second time on October 4-6 in Reggio Calabria, Italy. Our Founder and Science Coordinator Dr. Aylin Akkaya and her colleagues Giulia Cipriano (Department of Biology, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy), Rosalia Maglietta (Institute of Intelligent Industrial Systems and Technologies for Advanced Manufacturing, Italy) and Marta Azzolin (Life Science and System Biology Department of the University Turin/ Gaia Research Institute Onlus) at the conference are going to give a special session, under the heading “Current challenges and new technological approaches Applied to marine mammals and sea turtles conservation”.   In this special session, they will present “in an era of unprecedented global changes, to keep the marine ecosystems healthy is essential for the well-being of planet Earth. The monitoring of sentinel species such as marine mammals and sea turtles represents the cornerstone to evaluate human activities’ impacts on marine ecosystems functioning. This special session aims to collect contributions related to the application of new technologies, computer science and statistical strategies to the integration of biological and environmental data, aimed to increase knowledge on the bio-ecology of marine mammals and marine turtles, essential for the implementation of conservation measures, according to the ecosystem-based management approach.” Metro Sea website:  here

Evie White writes about Antalya land surveys “Had a pretty exciting morning, it’s my second land survey here in Turkey and we saw some cool things. The sun was shining and the seastate was near perfect. We sat on the cliffs patiently waiting for an observation, binos in hand. In the first hour Liam spotted a turtle which was beautiful and unexpected. Sitting looking out to sea has its moments of frustration, seabirds sitting on the surface often look like fins from afar so you get flashes of excitement and then disappointment. Suddenly Enorha shouted “DOLPHIN”, we all grabbed our binoculars and the data sheet. It was a lot of fun, we saw around 10 individuals including a juvenile; we observed a lot of full leaps and it was evident they were socialising at points. We witnessed them for around an hour; what a great experience. SO MUCH FUN”. 

Laura sharing her survey impressions  It was not my day! I had a morning survey that started at 5.45 after a really bad night. So you can imagine that I was not really looking forward to that. However, the chance to see some dolphins, gets me excited even that day. After that survey, I was so dead that I really really needed a nap. I fell into my bed and fell asleep. Of course I was not that lucky, after 20 minutes, Claudia came to my room, waking me up to tell that we would go on boat survey at 12. Chill, I can still nap a little then. 10 minutes later, she was there again, now we would leave at 11. No time for napping anymore. Later, we arrived at the boat, ready to see dolphins, although I was still a little tired. On the boat, Selina realized we were actually out of petrol. Well, that was exciting to say the least. With a very low and constant speed we navigated to the gas station, praying that we would reach it in time. Luck was at our side that afternoon, not only that we reached the gas station without to swim to there, but also that we saw dolphins! Oh, I love seeing dolphins! Every time, my heart skips a beat. Their beauty and elegance are mesmerizing. Although I’m still working on my photography and spotting skills (I am not so good at seeing them), I love to take pictures of them. My day started as a nightmare but ended in a dream.

ACCOBAMS’ 5th Conference on Cetacean Conservation for South Mediterranean Countries We joined an online conference by the ACCOBAMS 5th Conference on the Conservation of Marine Mammals for Southern Mediterranean Countries yesterday. In the online presentation, the details of our work, which has been going on since 2018, were shared. Our Founder and Scientific Director, Dr Aylin Akkaya shared, obtained datas about our research in the Eastern Mediterranean and the anthropogenic effects on marine mammals in her presentation.