The training was organized by "Mare Nostrum" NGO - Romania (www.marenostrum.ro) within the project “Pilot Cetaceans Photo-ID activities along Southern Bulgarian Black Sea coast”, financed by the Secretariat of ACCOBAMS. Lecturer, Joan Gonzalvo, expert from Thetys Research Institute (Italy) and project manager of the Ionian Sea Dolphin project (http://ioniandolphinproject.org/), with his impressive skills to hold attention and raise the spirit of the participants turned the lectures in real pleasure.

Training had to begin with a trial photo-identification survey of dolphins, but weather conditions prevented that. Instead of it the lectures from Joan Gonzalvo on several topics - collecting, processing, analyzing and cataloguing photos of cetaceans - fully compensated the initial disappointment of the change in the program. To the participants were shown subtleties in the evaluation of images quality, identification of the individuals and how to photograph dolphins - dorsal fins and marks all over their bodies, analyzing historical photographs and evolution of the fin and the marks, catalogue production and processing of the selected images with specialized software.

We would like to use this opportunity to thank the organizers from the NGO "Mare Nostrum", the Secretariat of ACCOBAMS for their financial support as well as lecturer Joan Gonzalvo for his professionalism and shared information and skills.


For more information:
Dimitar Popov - Green Balkans NGO
dpopov@greenbalkans.org