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Hello! I’m Katie – having grown up in coastal cities, I have always enjoyed being by the sea. I’m currently taking a gap year before starting university in September to study Marine Biology and Oceanography. Being fascinated with the ocean and its inhabitants, I wanted to spend my year out gaining research and conservation experience.  I started my studies of marine biology when participating in a Coral Reef Ecology course on a voluntary research expedition to Dominica in 2016. Since then, I have participated in internships with AIMM Portugal where I had the opportunity to contribute towards the conservation of cetaceans through research and education. Throughout both of these opportunities, I gained experience working in the field, as well as knowledge about the many threats that humans pose to the ocean. I have also spent time carrying out environmental research in a geolab at the University of Oxford’s School of Geography. Here, I gained skills from professionals of climate change and gained in-depth knowledge of the environmental pressures that are becoming more and more pressing on an everyday basis. By participating in these different opportunities I have learnt just how important and valuable the natural environment really is. It is vital for us, as the only species on Earth able to make a difference, to protect the ocean and its inhabitants. We must also accept responsibility to ensure the future of the marine environments by raising awareness through research and education.  I am spending three months with DMAD, working with the Montenegro Dolphin Project team. I’m excited to learn about the marine mammals of Montenegro and how to use scientific software that can be used to process raw data. This internship has also provided me with the opportunity to visit a country that I have never visited before and see places I otherwise might not visit! Above all, I’m happy to finally be back in the field, gaining more hands-on experience in the field of marine conservation!

10th – 15th January 2020 Introduction DMAD with the support of the MAVA foundation has continued to conduct the only dedicated seasonal survey effort collecting data on cetaceans within the Levantine Sea. The project has been running since April 2018 with the goal of collecting long-missing data on the marine top predators of the Levantine. The collected data will form part of a defense mechanism against unregulated and uncontrolled human pressures. The Levantine Sea is under pressure from unmitigated fishery practices, habitat destruction, marine traffic, marine debris and recently oil and gas explorations, each of which is adding to a collective pressure of threats on marine species. In order to protect what remains, our team travelled between Marmaris and Antalya Bay following pre-determined transects for five days in Janaury 2020. The main tasks involved monitoring acoustics twenty four hours a day and conducting visual surveys in search of cetaceans during daylight hours. Five Days at Sea Within the first twenty four hours, the team encountered a pair of Cuvier’s Beaked whales, which are known as one of the most elusive cetacean species. The species of concern was recently upgraded to Vulnerable status by the IUCN Red List after being classified as “data deficient” for over 10 years. The presence of Cuvier’s beaked whales have previously been recorded by the DMAD team in the Antalya Bay since 2015. Yet, the decline in their sighting rates, coupled with an increase in stranding data) has raised concerns.  Therefore, the current sighting was a silver lining to the winter clouds that shrouded our survey and pushed us harder to carry out our dedicated survey efforts within the least scientifically explored region of the Mediterranean. We encountered over 20 groups of delphinids, including an offshore sighting of bottlenose dolphins, a species that is generally consdiered to be coastal in the Mediterranean Sea.  By looking at our data, it is clear to see that the Levantine Sea, which was once assumed to be ‘the desert’ of the Mediterranean Sea, holds key habitats for cetaceans not only in its coastal waters but also in its deeper blues. Further to this, the basin continues to be important for cetaceans even during the colder seasons. Önceki Sonraki Nevertheless, the same habitats are suffering from the ignorance of us, humans. We have encountered kilometre long rivers of waste, striped dolphins with one metre long parasites and last but not least, loud and impulsive noises throughout our study, days and night, leaving no room for silence for animals who depends on sound for their very survival!  Now, it is a known fact that anthropogenic noise does impact the marine ecosystem from bottom to top, from causing an increase in the mortality of zooplankton and fish larvae to the permanent hearing loss and mortality of marine megafauna. And in 2020, despite the known cause-result relationship, the noise pressure continues with no mitigation measures applied in the area (to the best of our knowledge).  We each must continue our individual efforts, from small to big, in order to protect the animals that depend on us and DMAD will certainly be doing so! If you would like to see what DMAD gets up to day-to-day and see photos from our surveys please follow us on Facebook and Instagram, @marinemammalsresearch. Or if you would like to join us on a future survey or donate to our cause, email us at [email protected]

As the United Nation’s World Wildlife Day, March 3rd is a perfect opportunity to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild animals and plants. Although DMAD is a marine protection organisation, our volunteers and staff come from a wide range of backgrounds, all with one thing in common: our love for wildlife and its conservation! In honour of 2020’s World Wildlife Day, Research Assistant Myrthe Bakker has written a blog post on her favourite member of the animal kingdom: Eurasian beavers! For World Wildlife Day I decided to write a little about the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber). Having worked on a project about the beavers in the past I became fascinated by their biology and behaviours!  Eurasian beavers are a keytone species for their environment; they manage water levels with their dams which trap sediment, improve water quality, recharge groundwater tables and increase cover and foraging grounds for fish. If a beaver settles in an area, other animals are likely to settle in the same vicinity soon after. As the largest rodents in Europe, Eurasian beavers can grow to be up to 1 metre in length with a 30 centimetre tail, weigh between 25 and 30 kg and have a lifespan of 7-8 years. Social animals, the beavers gather in colonies formed of only one dominant breeding pair and including up to 12 individuals. With their sharp teeth they cut down trees and use these to build dams and lodges.  The species was once widespread across Europe and Asia, but by the beginning of the 20th century their numbers and range declined drastically due to over-hunting for their fur and castoreum.  In the early 1900s, experts estimated that there were only 8 populations left globally – approximately 1200 individuals. In response to the drastically low numbers, however, huge conservation efforts have lead to an incredible recovery in population numbers and distribution! In 2006, there was an estimated minimum global population of 639,000 individuals. Presently, the population numbers are still increasing, and Eurasian beavers are listed as “Least Concern” on the IUCN red list!  Eurasian beaver hunting underwater (Photo: Louis-Marie Preau via bioGraphic) Eurasian beavers are a fantastic example of what we stand to gain from clear, well-planned conservation initiatives. Species can be brought back from the brink of extinction to thrive in high numbers and generate a huge number of benefits for the ecosystems around them.  Do you have a favourite animal? Leave us a comment to tell us a little about why you love them, and what you would like to do to help them! 

Hi, I’m Selina! So a little background story: I was born and raised on the island Ameland. This island lies in the middle of the Wadden Sea World heritage area in the northern part of the Netherlands. I grew up working in the hotel of my parents, so I have a lot of experience in the hospitality industry also due to my training as a hotel manager. In my childhood I also had a lot of beautiful nature around me. Thanks to all of this, I have developed a passion for the protection and conservation of the marine environment with a main focus on whales, dolphins and other marine animals through research and environmental education.  I started my Bachelor Coastal zone management with major Marine Biology. For this bachelor study I did an internship with DMAD for a total of 9 months to assist Aylin with her PhD thesis on the interaction between cetaceans and the marine traffic in the Bosporus, Istanbul. Despite the fact that her thesis had nothing to do with the hospitality industry I still put some of my experience and skills to good use in the field and in the office. I enjoyed living and working with her there and learned a lot in those few months!  I recently graduated and, by coincidence, Aylin and I came into contact again. Long story short…now I am back at DMAD as a Volunteer Coordinator for the Montengero Dolphin Research project! I hope I can be a good addition to DMAD team!  I have been here for a week now and have experienced so much, it reminds me of the adventurous time I had in Istanbul, it’s like coming home! And that’s the charm of the Balkans! To find out more about our internships and volunteering opportunities, please click here! 

I am excited to continue working in conservation with DMAD and broaden my experience working with marine mammals! In May 2019, I graduated from the University of Vermont with a BSc in Environmental Studies and Wildlife Biology. During my time at college, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Patagonia, Chile for one semester. There, I conducted research on the endangered huemul deer species through live sightings and fecal pellet densities while we trekked through the Patagonian region – from the southern tip of South America to the northern part of the Aysén region.  My time in Patagonia solidified the fact that I wanted to pursue conservation research. Since then, I have been building my skillset through various jobs and internships in the United States. I love being outdoors and getting to know new places through their ecological lens, but also want to play a part in protecting the areas and species that I, and so many of us, value and depend on. Before coming to Montenegro, I met up with the team in Turkey to participate in their annual cetacean survey in the Levantine Sea. I am excited to continue working in conservation with DMAD and broaden my experience working with marine mammals. As this is only my second time in Europe, I am also looking forward to exploring a new part of the world!

WWF Turkey and DMAD’s important new project Introduction WWF-Turkey and DMAD conducted their first seasonal survey effort on the 4th of January 2020 in the Istanbul Strait after a break of almost 5 years. The survey also covered the neighbouring water of the Marmara and Black Seas in addition to the strait itself with the aim of further developing the photo-identification catalogue of bottlenose dolphins which will eventually reveale the movement and residency patterns as well as the population size of this ‘At Risk’ species.  The Istanbul Strait is known as a biological corridor both for top predators and their prey. Its sustainable management means the well-being of not only the strait itself but also the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Its vulnerable habitat is under heavy human pressure from marine traffic to pollution. Daily marine traffic in the Strait reaches up to 2500 vessels and the marine pollution leaves no clean zones for either marine animals or humans. The same habitat is also under a more recent threat of an ignorant project called “Channel Istanbul” which aims to create a man-made channel  (effectively a second Istanbul Strait) which will have irreversible consequences for all local marine and terrestrial fauna and flora by draining the Black Sea, introducing invasive species and increasing pollution rates within the Aegean Sea. As a team of researchers, we have one and only one goal in mind; to protect our home and its inhabitants! For this purpose, our dedicated survey in the Istanbul Strait has been launched!  Survey Day Within the first two hours of the survey, the team came across three different groups of bottlenose dolphins, including some juveniles. This was not an uncommon sighting for this area and the groups stayed near the boat for approximately 40 minutes in total. The team collected behavioural data and photos to update a photo identification catalogue that has been added to for 10 years. As we travelled north, we encountered another pod of bottlenose dolphins, as well as endangered harbour porpoise. As we returned South, we encountered another large pod of bottlenose dolphins. Therefore, in only 8 hours, we encountered over 8 groups of cetaceans with new-borns and juvenilles within the group, a hotspot which we are all – from the public to the authorities – duty bound to protect. The Istanbul Strait also offers a perfect spot to observe, enjoy and support wildlife observations. Dolphin parks, on the other hand subject dolphins to a lifetime of misery. Just a few of the many misfortunes they encounter include: Tanks too shallow for dolphins to properly dive in which means that they cannot avoid the midday sun and often get sunburn and blistering on their backs. Tanks which are far too small can lead to depression and self-harming behaviours. Dolphins can swim up to a hundred kilometres in a day yet are normally kept in tanks which are only tens of metres wide. This can lead to behaviours rarely experienced in the wild such as deliberate beaching and gnawing on walls and gates. The repeated banging of the head against walls has been documented in orcas. Alongside this dolphins are subject to outbursts of aggression from tank mates who are frustrated. Food deprivation. Dolphins are kept hungry in order to teach them to learn new unnatural behaviours or participate in ‘swim-with’ activities. Labelled by the industry as ‘positive reinforcement’ or ‘operant conditioning’, this practice is the only way to get dolphins to accustomed to human intreractions and to learn tricks for human enjoyment. Unsuitable matching. Dolphins are regularly paired in groups with dolphins which were captured far away from one another leading them to not be able to communicate with one another and raising stress levels Tanks with poor quality water. Some tanks have very poor water quality which are not treated properly due to litter thrown into the tanks by crowds and bacterial infections. This leads to visible sores and lesions on the dolphins. Some parks combat this by adding lots of chlorine to the tanks. At best this causes severe irritation to the eyes and at worst it can cause permanent sighting impairment.  So grabs some binoculars and make the most of the fantastic wildlife that can be seen in its natural environment and keep your eyes peeled for another article on the horror of dolphin parks. To keep up-to-date with our research, surveys and much more follow us on facebook and instagram! If you are interested in joining any of our surveys in the future we’d love to hear from you! Drop us an email us at: [email protected]. 

I’m Izzy, I love cetaceans and I get to spend the next couple of months in Montenegro working, living and breathing dolphins (and mountain air!). After graduating from the University of Exeter with a BSc in Zoology, I had a keen interest to gain experience in real research. My passion lies with marine mammals, being lucky enough to have seen cetaceans all around the world, but the increasing pressures humans are applying to the marine environment coupled with the tiny amount we know is terrifying and has advanced my interest into a future career.   I already had some field experience through field courses such as to the Galapagos Islands and marine mammal surveys with the charity MARINE Life, but responsibilities had always ended after data collection. I therefore applied to become part of the MDR team to help ‘behind the scenes’ in an area where little has previously been done. Time is split between surveys and office work, so no week is ever the same! We do land surveys from Herceg Novi in the north and into Albania in the south, with each location having stunning views of the impressive mountainous scenery, even better on a morning survey watching the sunrise over the sea. When we’re not off finding dolphins, there’s a wealth of things to learn and do from data analysis to presentations in schools and beach cleans. Working in a team consisting of such a variety of individuals of various ages, backgrounds and nationalities is brilliant with refreshing perspectives on ideas and projects and is key in disseminating our work effectively. From this internship I hope to go on to do a master’s and work towards a career in research or conservation, and I have learnt so much here to help me pursue this path.

With the intention of better understanding the causes of litter pollution and waste in Montenegro’s areas of natural beauty, the Montenegro Dolphin Research team conducted a brand audit of waste collected on a recent clean of Bar’s public beach. Research assistant Elle Sibthorpe writes… As a cetacean research programme the issue of waste and ocean plastic – although not directly related to the Montenegro Dolphin Research project – is an issue of such magnitude that it cannot be ignored. While there are many factors contributing to the decline in numbers of dolphins and whales sighted in the Southern Adriatic, litter is a constant feature of walks, surveys, boat trips and even inland hikes enjoyed by our team. Not only is this damaging to Montenegro’s incredibly beautiful and varied natural environment, but it is directly impacting upon the natural habitat of cetaceans that are already so at risk.  Communities, conservationists, NGOs and local businesses alike have a fantastic network here in Montenegro, taking on the responsibility of collecting and dealing with the waste that washes up in their lakes, rivers and oceans – but is it right that such groups should be bearing the brunt of the work?  In November our interns facilitated a community beach clean in Bar with the express intention of analysing the waste collected and conducting a brand audit in an attempt to identify which companies are the heaviest polluters in the area. Thanks to fantastic public involvement we were able to collect nine 200L bin liners of waste within a two hour period, which then required a further two hours of separating, counting and analysis from our volunteer team. The survey was conducted over a 300m section of pebble beach, following the protocol of the #breakfreefromplastic global brand audit.   The range of items collected was as we expected, based on previous beach cleans, and included significant numbers of personal care products, discarded fishing gear, packaging material and household products. Of the 1755 items collected, however, two categories of waste dominated. An incredible 666 items were classified as Food Packaging and 659 as Smoking Materials, working out at 37.9% and 37.5% respectively. To have more than 75% of the total waste collected derive from two categories is perhaps shocking, but does allow us to clearly identify the major causes of waste and establish targeted actions for its reduction.  We quickly identified an issue with fulfilling the initial aim of the survey: the nature of cigarette butts (which accounted for 99.7% of Smoking Materials collected) means that identifying their brand is incredibly difficult, particularly when they have spent time disintegrating in salt water. The fact that they degrade so quickly does not suggest that they are not detrimental to the environment, however. The majority of cigarette butts are made of a plastic called cellulose acetate in the form of thin, fibrous strands packed closely together. While cellulose acetate can be recycled, the majority of facilities are not equipped to do so, and the fact that the littering of cigarette butts is such a widely accepted practice means that few ever reach the recycling centres at all. Directing our attention instead to Food Packaging, we found that the most prevalent items were aluminium cans, which represented 37.8% of the category total, followed by plastic bottles at 22.4%. Within this, beer and energy drink cans were the most commonly found items, with local brand Nik from the Trebjesa Brewery based in Nikšić, Montenegro taking the top spot, and Guarana (Serbia) and Holsten (Germany) featuring in the top five.        A number of conclusions could be drawn from this information. Does the fact that a local brand features so strongly indicate that consumers are preferring to shop close to home and avoid imported goods? Is it therefore a sad indictment that even local companies are not taking sufficient care to ensure that their packaging is dealt with appropriately after the point of consumption? There are, however, some initiatives that do work well to encourage consumers to dispose of their litter responsibly. One example of this would be glass bottle deposit schemes operated by many companies in Montenegro – including Trebeja Brewery – which begs the question of why such methods are being passed over in favour of single-use items?  Sadly, large, conglomerate brands were not absent from our findings. Of the overall total of items collected, Coca Cola appeared as the second most prevalent identifiable brand – corroborating allegations that have emerged steadily over the last few years that the company is one of the world’s most polluting brands.  Identifying items collected according to #breakfreefromplastic protocol Discarded cigarette butts have a huge impact upon marine life Collecting waste from Bar’s public beach #breakfreefromplastic       So what do these findings mean for our local community here in Bar? Currently, recycling facilities are very few in Montenegro, and there is not yet the infrastructure in place to effectively deal with recyclable waste. As part of our conservation efforts, the MDR team takes their personal recycling to a centre close to Podgorica, and a map of similar facilities can be found here. However, without doubt the single most effective way that we can improve the problem of waste in Montenegro is through reducing our consumption of unnecessary packaging, and asking tough questions of brands and companies that are not currently taking responsibility for the waste the enjoyment of their products creates. 

I am an English Literature graduate from Bath, U.K. Over a year ago I decided I wanted to make a change in career path and work in environmental conservation and animal welfare.  I’ve always been highly passionate about animal welfare and caring for habitats, and have enjoyed gaining previous experience in conservation projects.  I came across DMAD on Facebook and, after reading about the training that the internship offers, was keen to know more. I hadn’t actually heard of the software programs used, but this was a reason that I wanted to know more – I want to know as much as possible and you can never really stop learning. Particularly because I do not have a biological background this was a fantastic opportunity to enhance my skills and learn from those who do! I have not set my career path on marine conservation because I would like to help in a number of different conservation areas. I was pleased to have this opportunity to research how to protect marine mammals because before arriving I had been investigating the issues the oceans face. I am spending six months with DMAD so I am excited to learn a number of skills which I can carry on using in the future. Carrying out my own research projects will teach me more about marine mammals, their habitats and how to carry out and formulate the research. I am excited to see where this opportunity leads me!

Our Montenegro Dolphin Research interns had a brilliant morning last week in Podgorica running an interactive session on Montenegro’s ceatceans with children at the Maša International Kindergarten!  It’s an exciting (if slightly daunting!) task to step into a room full of children with the idea of introducing them to conservation, but we could not have hoped for a better audience than the wonderful class at Maša Internationl Kindergarten. The whole group was already familiar with dolphins and whales, taking the time to teach our team the Serbian terms for whale (“kut”) and dolphin (“delfin”), and were delighted to discover just how many of them live within kilometers of their kindergarten!  In Montenegrin waters there are 4 species of dolphin and two species of whale. We introduced each species with pictures and key facts, eventually playing a game in which the class was asked to guess whether our ‘fun facts’ referred to whales or dolphins. Once they had fully understood the differences between the two, we listened to recordings of dolphin clicks and whale calls. By listening to the sounds of cetaceans communicating they understood that these animals, like them, have friends that they communicate with and that loud, external noises can interrupt these important channels.  As in our presentations for older students, we place a strong focus on the effects of plastic pollution and overconsumption on marine life. At DMAD we believe that conservation needs to come into every aspect of life, and that no one is too young to grasp the importance of the impact that they personally can have on the world. In the case of young children, we often find that lessons learned in school quickly make their way into the consciousness of parents and other adults as their children pass on their knowledge outside of school.  With this in mind, we spent the second half of our presentation talking about the presence of litter and plastic in Montenegro’s oceans. We showed the children photographs from our recent beach clean of Maljevik Plaza in Sutomore organized by NVO Naša Akcija and asked them how they thought we could make the beaches a cleaner, safer environment for humans and cetaceans – and everything in between – in the future. Their answers were varied, but all agreed that putting our rubbish in the garbage – and not simply dropping it on the ground – was key.  When working in conservation it’s easy to focus on the negatives and difficulties we face in our attempts to protect the ocean. Spending the morning with such an enthusiastic and energetic group of budding conservationists reminded us that there is plenty of hope for the welfare of dolphins and whales!  We would like to extend a massive thank you to the staff at Maša for hosting us, and especially to the children for being a wonderful audience, and teaching us a few things too!