Enora and Liam writing: A month in pursuit of the Eastern’s marine mammals
After 1 year of no GGDS survey because of Covid, DMAD was back on the water for this winter for 20 days of survey offshore with an incredible team. The “Great Guardians of the Deep Seas” survey is so far our most extensive survey effort and covers the underwater trenches and mountains over 100km offshore. In the past the survey ranged from Fethiye to Antalya, however this year we decided to be more ambitious and surveyed from Fethiye to Hatay!
Compared to the western Mediterranean Sea, the east is more understudied concerning the diversity and abundance of cetaceans and there is a huge lack of knowledge of the animals present in this area.
Most of the information about the distribution and abundance of species in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea was from opportunistic sightings and strandings since the 1980s. The aim of DMAD by doing the GGDS survey is to bring together researchers, academic and professional passive acoustic monitoring in order to reduce this lack of knowledge and promote sustainable conservation practices for our marine ecosystems.
Here we want to share with you the best pictures during this winter survey of some of we saw:
