What a winter that was....

While we have seemed quiet on social media, our winter here in the Dolphin Zone has been anything but! This year I have learned how to swim in the rhythm of marine biologists, using winter to read, research, develop and take my first steps into the policy-scape. The overarching mission of the project is to advocate for common dolphins, Delphinus delphis, and building knowledge and relationships is essential. 

So - I completed my training as a Devon Marine Strandings network volunteer. My first callout was to a dolphin who was confirmed as bycaught. She was trapped in fishing nets close to shore, and discarded. I recovered her for post-mortem, feeling privileged to be so close to such a stunning animal at the same time as knowing that it was fundamentally wrong that I could touch her at all. She was lactating. We don’t know what happened to her calf. Tye was named by a couple on the beach, who spent some time contemplating her beauty and apologising for the wrong done to her. 

In other interesting strandings, I helped remove a body from a rocky and inaccessible beach. It was another common dolphin, named Levi as he is DZ -0501. 

A few weeks ago I recorded a dead sperm whale calf - the first recorded in Devon for at least 120 years. Again, it was fascinating, sad and mind-expanding to witness an in-situ necropsy for this infant, whose teeth had not yet erupted. 

This weekend was an inspiring meeting of the Marine Strandings Network, hosted by Cornwall Wildlife Trust, but with our Devon MSN and Marine Engagement Officer also reporting on our network here in Devon. It was fantastic to hear some stories from British Divers Marine Life Rescue about some successful rescues of common dolphins. 

Locally, I am now a member of the South West Marine Ecosystems’ cetacean group, and will be making a brief appearance in their online webinar in order to explain Dolphin Zone’s work and publicise how to submit photos for our developing catalogue. At a larger scale, I am also on the South Coast Marine Mammal Consortium, another inspiring group of specialists and academics who are seeking to work together for policy change and greater protection for the Western Channel Important Marine Mammal Area. At a larger scale again, I attended the UN-led ASCOBANS meeting of the Common Dolphin Steering Group, and gained a much wider perspective on the threats to our dolphins. 

And now for the even better stuff - we’re working with Happywhale to build a dataset for the common dolphins of SW England - some are already on there if you’d like to look! And best of all, we had our first resighting of the year. 

The very distinctive River Finnix has now been resighted 6 times between 2021 and 2026 - he’s obviously thriving and we will keep doing everything we can to keep him that way.