A foreign team of experts studies dolphins from Ulcinj to Boka

The Nautical Center Porto Montenegro from Tivat supports an international project of research on marine fauna and ecosystems in Boka Kotorska, with an emphasis on the presence of dolphins in the bay and how to preserve them.

It is the focus of the DMAD/MMRA initiative launched in Turkey, in which many volunteers - scientists, professors or students of marine biology from several European countries - joined. Their activities are focused on the waters of Turkey, Greece, Italy, Albania and Montenegro. In our country, DMAD leads the "Montenegro Doplhin" project, which has been working on for almost a year. Currently, 15 volunteers from all over the world are engaged in it, among them one volunteer from Montenegro.

The team headed by marine biologist Dr. Aylin Akkaya from Turkey is stationed in Ulcinj, but has been working in the field and offshore along the entire Montenegrin coast for almost a year.

These days, their focus is on collecting data on the dolphin population in the Bay of Kotorska, and next week they will officially present their project to the local public at a presentation that will be held on Wednesday, August 30, in Porto Montenegro.

"Besides the strictly scientific aspect of collecting data and reporting on the population of marine mammals, primarily dolphins in Montenegro, our project is also focused on the practical part because we aim to engage local people, especially sailors, fishermen and sailors, who could help our intentions to contribute preservation of the environment in Montenegro and the region of the southern Adriatic", said Dr. Aylin Akkaya, who stayed in Tivat with her colleague Elisa Gagol from Italy, to "Vijesta".

According to her, from September of last year until today, they spent about 200 days in the field and at sea, during which they confirmed the presence of a total of 46 individuals of two species of dolphins in Montenegrin waters using the method of photo identification. Their data show that these dolphins move along the entire coast because they found the same individuals both near Ulcinj and later in Boke Bay itself.

"Our collaborator here is an environmental NGO, and our focus is on collecting data on how human activities exert pressure and influence the dolphin population in the waters of Montenegro. Our volunteers, among whom there are actually bachelor's or master's students in marine biology, write seminar and other scientific papers based on this, which they present together with the collected data at international conferences and seminars. We want to include Montenegrin experts as much as possible, as well as volunteers, especially students and high school students from Montenegro, because our goal is to expand the ecological world and introduce the wider public to the importance of preserving the ecological system. If you have dolphins in your lake as one of the top predators, then the state of that ecosystem is good, and if there are none, something serious has gone wrong with your ecology," explains the Turkish scientist. She pointed out that much more scientific data has been collected in Slovenia and Croatia and research has been carried out on dolphin populations there, while data for Montenegro are still relatively scarce.

The work of DMAD is currently financed by the funds of a private foundation and by the volunteering of the participants themselves, while they are already in the process of applying for IPA funds from European funds because the dolphin research project in the southern Adriatic will soon expand to Italian and Albanian waters.

"It is extremely important for the general public to become aware of how important the sea is for the overall environment and how many dangers threaten it from the destruction of natural habitats for marine animals, overfishing of marine organisms, drastic changes in space and excessive urbanization on the coastline itself, pollution of the sea with oil , plastic and other pollutants, as well as various other human activities", emphasized Dr. Akkaya, in particular apostrophizing the very harmful effects that will undoubtedly have on marine mammals in the southern Adriatic by the upcoming oil and gas exploration in the sea, which has already been agreed upon by the Montenegrin Government, and which perform the so-called seismic cannons whose activity and noise have a devastating effect on dolphins, whales and seals.

"People must understand that the sea is the natural habitat and home of those animals, not ours, because man is only a "guest" in the sea. Therefore, people must be extremely careful and treat this beautiful, but very sensitive and fragile ancient wealth", concluded the Turkish naulnica.

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