By Daniela Maldini, PhD | Chief Scientist
We would like to once again thank all of you that have donated your support to us. I have been traveling the world talking to colleagues that study dolphins in other areas of the planet and everyone is more and more concerned about the status of our oceans and the challenges that plague dophins in all seas and oceans are many. Contaminants are one of the major issues many research teams, like ours, are dealing with at the moment.
In the last few months we have engaged many colleagues in trying to understand the best way to analyze contaminant samples. In fact, samples taken from the dolphins are very small indeed to minimize our disturbance of the animal, so a few grams of blubber and skin have many a tale to tell us.
In particular, hidden in this sample, are not only hints of the type of contaminant that the dolphins came into contact with and accumulated, but also the genetic fingerprint of each animal. We would like to use a piece of the sample to determine the genealogical tree of the dolphins we are studying to understand their family relationships and shed light on the group composition of our dolphins.
So far we have collected about $6000 in donations. Our goal is a budget of about $80,000 to be able to fulfill our goal. Your donations keep Okeanis hoping to achieve this goal and finally complete our study.
Our team is now focussing on data analysis to complete one doctoral thesis project, and to be able to send more samples to the lab for analysis.
Keep us in your thoughts and continue to support us.
Sincerely
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