Moreton Bay Dolphin Research Project Update Autumn 2020
Between field seasons in Moreton Bay, there is a flurry of data analysis back in the office. Hours of sifting through images matching dolphin dorsal fins to our catalogue and finding out who we’ve seen, who has calves, and who doesn’t. We do this one-by-one. Yes, that’s right, there’s no automatic matching system and it’s a big part of our research team’s job to visually match each fin. But there’s nothing quite like the ‘woohooo’ that is exclaimed from an excited team member who just had a fin match!
Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, we have had to postpone our Moreton Bay Ecovolunteer Expeditions for this year. However, we will be heading out with our small core research team to do the surveys later in the year, once it is safe to do so. We can’t wait to see our Australian humpback and Indo-Pacific dolphin friends of the Bay very soon!
In the meantime, we are working hard on finishing an analysis on the presence of injuries and skin diseases on the two species. This assessment provides the first description of skin diseases in the Australian humpback dolphin and the early findings are very revealing. Stay tuned for more updates as we finalise this work.