A week in the eyes of one of DMAD’s interns: Dorka in Montenegro “This week was quite interesting in Montenegro for our team at DMAD. Thanks to the beautiful weather we were able to go out on board again on Wednesday morning and this time the sea was super chill, the view was amazing in the basin of the mountains, although we did not see dolphins – at least not when on board. However, during the next day morning survey they appeared in front of us just exactly where we ran our boat survey the day before.”  “And if it wasn’t enough, on the same day due to the sunny weather we spotted dolphins in the sunset in Lustica Bay! This was a huge excitement because dolphin sightings were scarce in this area before, plus for one of us this was the first time to see dolphins up close which made us even happier. In front of the fabulous orange-grey sky dolphins were diving, rewarding us for all of our efforts and making all of us filled with joy. To add to the mood even though the weather was bad on Friday to conduct a survey we saw dolphins again just in front of our house from our garden! “

Jolien, an intern on placement with us, shares her experiences from last week “Last week we were stationed at Lustica Bay. As usual we prepared the theodolite, filled in the environmentals and started looking through the binoculars. It was my first time on this station so I was really amazed by the view. We just changed positions and I took the binocular to start my search for some dolphins, not really expecting to see any. Right on that moment I saw him, the first dolphin ever spotted by DMAD at Lustica Bay! I got enormously excited but also stressed at the same time because everything need to happen correct and structured. I felt really honored to be the first person to see one in the bay. “ “Later that week we had the first boat survey since I arrived so I was really curious about how it would all work out. The road to the bay where the boat was stationed was already beautiful so my day couldn’t get stuck anymore. Once we got on the boat, the view got even nicer because we could see the whole bay from it! We sailed all the way op to the Bay of Kotor, unfortunately without seeing dolphins. I think they hid for the enormous fog that came over us on the sea. Going back to the bay was a great adventure because we couldn’t see more than 10 m in front of us! Once back safe on the mainland I realized that this week was full of surprises and even tho we didn’t see dolphins on the water that day, I will never forget about it because waw, what an adventure was that!”

You may have seen our recent blog entry about our team struggling with stormy seas, rain and even a bit of snow whilst taking on the mammoth task of trying to fill data gaps in the Levantine Sea. The team struggled through seasickness and the cold and have managed to collect some really useful information on marine mammals and their associated threats, all with a smile on their face. DMAD’s Founder and Scientific Director smiling through the rain Well, it seems that the DMAD team can’t get a break with the weather! This time, our team of researchers in Montenegro was out on an opportunistic survey in the north of the country when thick fog rolled in down the mountains. Sadly this meant that the survey had to be abandoned, but the resulting photos (below) are phenomenal. Once again, full credit goes to our team for not being disheartened and appreciating the beauty of the event rather than getting frustrated. Whenever you survey in winter, there is always a good chance that you will run into bad weather (and thus winter surveys are far rarer than summer ones in marine biology), however, knowing the seasonal distribution of marine mammals is hugely important in the effective conservation of these species and so we will be back at it again and again until we have the data we need. If you would like to learn more about our work with Montenegro Dolphin Research please click here. Full credit goes to our team for keeping a positive attitude

DMAD researchers keep spirits high despite rough seas and even a bit of snow You see so many pictures on social media of researchers in swimwear with big smiles and bright blue skies in the background. You rarely see the other side of surveys on social media, partly because there are less surveys in the winter but partly because of the pressure of showing the ‘perfect life’. Our team in the Levantine Sea of Turkey have been through rain and rough waters for the last few days with even a bit of snow near Adana! But they’ve still managed to keep smiling as they collect important information to fill data gaps in one of the most data deficient areas of the Mediterranean. If you want to learn more about a research in the Levantine, you can read more here

Liam Van Walsum presented about the results of DMAD’s expeditions in the Eastern Mediterranean at the 5th Annual Conference of the ANZSCSMM21 We said a quick hello to the new year! Our intern and teammate Liam Van Walsum present us at the Conference. He presented at the 5th ANZSCSMM Conference this year and talk about the results of DMAD’s expeditions in the Eastern Mediterranean. You can access the video of the conference below, and you can reach Liam’s presentation starting from the 19th minutehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNJKtRrt_E4&feature=emb_logo&fbclid=IwAR2r5CEIVnBN8O7XVJ5mJnQHfsHySM39N-EQP6

28/12/2020 A Bottlenose Dolphin stranded on the Beach of Budva Just before we leave 2020 behind us, something sad happened. Last Monday night (28-12-2020) a dolphin stranded on the beach of Budva, Montenegro. When it stranded it was already dead for a while. The dolphin was an adult Bottlenose Dolphin. Unfortunately, the cause of death is unknown. Bottlenose dolphins are a common species and live on the whole coastline of Montenegro, including the Kotor bay. They can grow up to 3,5 meters and reach a lifespan of 40-50 years. Our team mostly observes them in groups of 2-4 individuals, however last month we observed a group up to 8-10 individuals with 2 juveniles in the Kotor Bay.Thank you for photos&videos to @podgoricki_vremeplov account.

M. Melis Basmaci writing for DMAD 19/12/2020 DMAD is an active and successful NGO that focuses on Marine biology and its conservation. It has another significant part in my life as it happens to be founded by my old and good friend Dr. Aylin Akkaya. Although it has been a long time that Aylin has started doing surveys in many parts of the world; it was for the first time that we had a chance to take our first survey together in Rose Heights, Radovici, Tivat yesterday morning.  The weather was sunny and the sea was calm as a sheet with a lovely panoramic view of almost 180 degrees. We arranged the exact spot for the theodolite and gathered around our equipments in order to be ready for a possible dolphin survey at 8 o’clock in the morning. First it was a calm scenery of four fishing boats sitting duck. Later on, there was a bit more of a traffic that was caused by several speeding boats crossing over in laps in and out of our survey sight. After two hours, we had spotted the diving activity of a pod of four dolphins. They were moving towards to the Herceg Novi direction and after around 500 meters they met the rest of the pod with four more dolphins. So it was 10:56 a.m. and the pod was surface feeding as we were watching them with joy. As a course of events, suddenly, three speeding boats had entered to our sight from both directions towards to the spot where the rest of the pod was heading through or hunting. The boats had a speed of 20 knots approximately, and by the time they entered a radius of 800 meters the pod dived into the water for good and disappeared.  We waited for another half hour observing the scenery for another sighting. As after a while had passed without an action, we accepted their disappearance and started to pack up our gear. Oh by the moment, Aylin felt dizzy from all day long sea gazing under the sun and she tripped over the theodolite and jugged its position. At that exact moment, I spotted the same pod emerged on the water in a sudden. So, there it was right in front of our eyes, a pod of four individuals, that were surface feeding. At the same time, though there was a motor boat cruising approximately 700 meters radius near them, yet they kept on feeding. There seems to be no disturbance caused by only one cruising boat with a speed of 7 knots in the perimeter around the pod.  However, it was obvious that the speeding boats with a speed of 20 knots seem to cause a disturbance for the pod. So, It was 11:32 when we spotted the pod for the second time and here they disappeared again. After another while of waiting without any sight, we decided to end the survey for the day and packed our equipments to be headed to the beach to meet Aylin’s son Doga. Eventually, It was an exciting survey where we could read clearly the old rivalry story between the dolphins and the humans repeating again. M. Melis Basmaci 19 December 2020 Radovici – Tivat – Montenegro

Presentation of the State of Mediterranean and Black Sea Fisheries 2020 DMAD staff were today in attendance of a virtual presentation on the ‘State of Mediterranean and Black Sea Fisheries 2020’. The presentation was presented by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean. The presentation covered an overview of a document with the same name that provides decision makers, scientists and other stakeholder with a comprehensive overview of regional and subregional trends in fisheries. It is a key tool in understanding the trends in fisheries to help decision making and and monitoring of impacts. The GFCM were quick to say that there was a long way to go with incredible to face in the future but used the event to a celebrate that despite 75% of Mediterranean and Black Seas fish stocks still being overexploited this number had actually decreased by more than 10% since 2014. Similar results were found for exploitation ratio with the number of stocks with relatively high biomass doubling since the last report. You can read the full document and a summary of important results here .

You mainly see photos on social media from research groups of marine mammals and researchers collecting data in the sun with tranquil seas in the background but an awful lot goes on in the background to make sure that this data isn’t just collected for photo opportunities and actually goes on to be meaningful. One of these background tasks is knowledge sharing and collaboration between different international parties. One of the very few benefits of COVID-19 is that it has forced everything online, allowing access to meetings/workshops for a great deal more scientists who either wouldn’t be able to afford flights or wouldn’t be able to justify the carbon footprint of attending these meetings in person. It’s been a busy week for the DMAD team and a look into our ‘new normal’ with presentations to the French Embassy in Istanbul, workshops with the Mediterranean Protected Area Network and a meeting of the IUCN family to discuss Marine Key Biodiversity Areas. On Tuesday, Dr Aylin Akkaya, DMAD’s Founder and Scientific Director met with various other parties to discuss climate change and our project run under WWF-Turkey which collects important data on the cetaceans of the Istanbul Strait. Simultaneously, DMAD’s Montenegrop Operations Director, Tim Awbery, joined a group of more than 200 scientists to take part in an online discussion about Marine Key Biodiversity Areas with presentations from a wide range of different approaches. Of particular interest to Tim were the country level work that has been taking place in Mozambique and obviously the section that focused on marine mammals which was presented by Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara. Fast-forward less than 24 hours and Aylin and Tim were back talking to a group of more than 100 scientists from across the Mediterranean. This time these scientists were from the Mediterranean Protected Area Network (MedPAN) of which DMAD is a partner organisation. The conference was with regards to marine turtles and DMAD took part to learn about how we could make sure that the turtles that were encountered on our marine mammal research expeditions were properly recorded increasing collaboration between teams and making sure that meager research budgets stretch a little bit further. Next week sees the DMAD team talking to specialist acousticians from the UK and Ireland and engaging in a presentations from General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean – GFCM about the State of Fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Seas.