26.01.2018 – Monitoring Ocean health through bird colonies

A morning trip on board STENELLA, with wind increasing from the North quadrant our spotter found Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) swimming at a high pace towards West. Apparently closely followed by some Black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) that are more common at this time of the year. If we consider that great part of the seabirds that we encounter during the year are most of the times following pods of dolphins or whales, we can deduct that they are also very dependent from cetaceans in foraging food. Monitoring on land their bird colonies is one method to determine stokes of fish in our Ocean and consequently also the presence of predators like cetaceans that enable this feeding situations to happen, providing nourishment to nesting bird colonies.

by Daniel Jardim

Sightings of the day

Stenella

10:00 Bottlenose dolphins