After a busy week of boat trips and dolphin information sessions, the DCP team welcomed the calm weekend. However, we were going to miss the Bimini Adventures group that we spent the past week with! They truly showed an interested in the research that is being conducted as well as the health and well being of the dolphins who call the water around Bimini home. It is encouraging to see individuals outside of the research community share in DCP’s goals of education and conservation. As Kel often says, once we are able to get individuals to care about the dolphins themselves, then they will begin to care about their habitat as well!
Friday and Saturday brought half days in the office for us, interns, as we continued to work on our video logging and bottlenose dolphin photo identification. For the remainder of those days we were able to explore the island, snorkel, and restock on groceries. Sunday and Monday were full days in the office, but, much to our excitement, they ended with watching Shark Week on Discovery Channel. Although Shark Week brings with it the extra drama and sensationalism that often comes in society’s portrayal of sharks, it has wonderful cinematography and images from under the sea. It was extra exciting to watch from Bimini because so much of the filming for this year’s episodes was done right here! As part of the research community, we want to do our part to change the negative stereotypes that accompany sharks. Just like dolphins, sharks are vital to ecosystems all over the world, including here in The Bahamas. As a part of this internship, we have been lucky enough to swim with sharks, as well as dolphins, and observe first hand just how graceful and highly evolved they are! It reminds us, again, that we want to do all that we can to protect marine environments all around the world.
Until tomorrow,
The Trio (Tori, Patrick, & Kaiya)