Even while Tim was on a short recovery break after his accident, it was a real relief and a proud moment to know that Francesca Soster was presenting Plotting the Wild's early results on species distribution modelling for cetacean conservation in Malta at ECS2025. It’s been a pleasure collaborating with Francesca and the rest of the team on this work.  And… exciting news — the paper has just been accepted for publication! Keep your eyes peeled for its release 👀

"This should have been the worse few weeks of my life"

Ever wondered if dolphins have accents? Well so did we!

Come and Join our Course! Email us for your application form.

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

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.

The European Cetacean Society held it's first virtual conference and DMAD were there presenting our work on how fishing practices appear to be affecting the behavioural budget of bottlenose dolphins. You can read the abstract here or if you have any questions you can email laurarudd@dmad.org.tr or info@dmad.org.tr

Today, DMAD will be presenting the final session of the European Cetacean Society, "Fishing practices affect the behavioural budget of bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Montenegro, South Adriatic Sea". The presentation gives some of the results from Laura Rudd et al.'s work on the differencesin behaviour exhibited by dolphins when in the presence of artisanal and industrial fisheries. Unfortunately Laura has recently undergone major surgery so Molly Crowe, one of DMAD's interns from our new and highly successful remote internship who helped with the analysis will be presenting on her behalf. Make sure to catch the talk at 16:20 - 16:50 (Central European Time). That's 15:20 UK time or 18:20 Turkish times. DMAD wishes Laura a speedy recovery.

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: http://www.dmad.org.tr/giant-guardians-of-the-deep-seas-ii