A bird-eye and a dolphin-ear to investigate Common Dolphin behaviour

Hi everybody,

Not only we have been back to the Ocean for our whale watching expeditions, but we also took advantage of helping researchers collecting the data they need to understand more about our whale and dolphin friends. In the last week, we hosted Fadia Al Abbar on a research dedicated trip onboard Terra Azul boat to test her methodology to collect video and acoustic data on Common Dolphins (Delphinus delphis). Fadia is starting her PhD and her approach to investigate dolphin behavior includes the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) – or drones – to observe the dolphins from a advantageous perspective in a non-invasive way.

You can have a look at one of our aerial recordings above 😉

Our first test was not the most encouraging as in the whole morning we encountered five species of whales and dolphins, but not Common Dolphins! However, the second attempt was more lucky and, thanks to the help of our lookouts, we conducted some successful tests! See below pictures of hydrophone and drone operations 🙂

Stay tuned for updates about this interesting project!