Saving Abaco's Dolphins after Hurricane Dorian

Although the ongoing COVID-19 situation is still dominating our movements, these limitations have increased the quiet time in the Sea of Abaco that began with the monstrous hurricane Dorian destroying all the boats on 1^st September 2019.

We are recieving more reports of dolphins returning to the Sea of Abaco and using their historical habitats. We recently again retrieved and redeployed our acoustic recorders in the Sea of Abaco that continue to monitor the changes in ambient noise and detect dolphin presence in the area.

We have also been given funding from the Bahamas Protected Area Fund and the Devereux Ocean Foundation to continue this important project and conducted a two week survey in the Sea of Abaco in November 2021.

Visual and acoustic dolphin surveys were conducted on all days the weather allowed (n=9). During surveys the vessel covered over 700 km searching for dolphins which resulted in seven dolphin encounters including 25 dolphins. Preliminary analysis of the photographs found that 15 individual dolphins identified, including approximately 60% of individuals known from the Sea of Abaco in previous years as well as 4 mother/calf pairs.

Links:

• Facebook post during our two week survey in November