We celebrated the successful completion of Survey 2023 on Sunday, June 25. Another sea adventure of our team, filled with sleepless nights, more than 700 kilometers covered, topped with weather challenges.
The start of the expedition was given on June 20, but due to worsening weather forecast it was postponed by a day. Thus, the total time for which we sailed the transects along the Bulgarian shelf was 4 long days. Due to the fact that the expedition coincided with the summer solstice and the longest days of the year, it was possible to cover a large distance in a day, thus giving the team about 15 hours of work per day - from sunrise to sunset.
The goal of the expedition for the second year in a row was not only the Bulgarian territorial waters, but also the entire shelf area up to the 100-meter isobath. The summarized results show 197 observations: 159 sightings of harbour porpoises, mostly single, but in places also in groups of 2-3 or more individuals; 27 sightings of bottlenose dolphins; 9 sightings of common dolphins and 2 sightings of mixed groups of dolphins. Feeding individuals were occasionally accompanied by flocks of yelkouan shearwaters. Although the species does not breed in the Black Sea region, young and non-breeding individuals continue to wander year-round in relatively large groups in search of food.
The collected data is to be analyzed and statistically processed. But the observation from last year is confirmed that during the summer months in the deep part of the Bulgarian shelf there is a large part of the harbor porpoise population. And why is such data, collected at the cost of a lot of work and challenges, invaluable and extremely important for our science? Because they are scarce. Namely, thanks to their accumulation, we understand our sea, we learn what is necessary for its ecosystem to function in a balanced way, so that we and the generations after us can enjoy the resources it gives us.
We thank for another year to the crew of the yacht Kaliakria for their professionalism and unforgettable moments. We are grateful to OceanCare for their trust and financial support, without which none of this would have been possible, and for their dedicated care of our planet's seas and oceans.
The start of the expedition was given on June 20, but due to worsening weather forecast it was postponed by a day. Thus, the total time for which we sailed the transects along the Bulgarian shelf was 4 long days. Due to the fact that the expedition coincided with the summer solstice and the longest days of the year, it was possible to cover a large distance in a day, thus giving the team about 15 hours of work per day - from sunrise to sunset.
The goal of the expedition for the second year in a row was not only the Bulgarian territorial waters, but also the entire shelf area up to the 100-meter isobath. The summarized results show 197 observations: 159 sightings of harbour porpoises, mostly single, but in places also in groups of 2-3 or more individuals; 27 sightings of bottlenose dolphins; 9 sightings of common dolphins and 2 sightings of mixed groups of dolphins. Feeding individuals were occasionally accompanied by flocks of yelkouan shearwaters. Although the species does not breed in the Black Sea region, young and non-breeding individuals continue to wander year-round in relatively large groups in search of food.
The collected data is to be analyzed and statistically processed. But the observation from last year is confirmed that during the summer months in the deep part of the Bulgarian shelf there is a large part of the harbor porpoise population. And why is such data, collected at the cost of a lot of work and challenges, invaluable and extremely important for our science? Because they are scarce. Namely, thanks to their accumulation, we understand our sea, we learn what is necessary for its ecosystem to function in a balanced way, so that we and the generations after us can enjoy the resources it gives us.
We thank for another year to the crew of the yacht Kaliakria for their professionalism and unforgettable moments. We are grateful to OceanCare for their trust and financial support, without which none of this would have been possible, and for their dedicated care of our planet's seas and oceans.
