SeaMôr staff have been involved in a long-term acoustic monitoring of bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoises with Sea Watch Foundation and Countryside Council for Wales since 2005. The reseach has involved deploying static acoustic monitoring (SAM) devices called T-PODs and C-PODs to record echolocation clicks of both species.

This information is used to learn about the habitat use and habitat partitioning between the species, and to find out when and where are the best feeding sites for dolphins and porpoises. In Cardigan Bay you can encounter both bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoises very regularly, which is one of the reasons why SeaMôr has been assisting Chelonia Ltd to test different stages of the new digital C-PODs right here to fine-tune and improve their performance in detecting these species.

Hanna is currently undertaking a three year PhD study in “Acoustic monitoring of bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoises” for University of Wales, Bangor in collaboration with Sea Watch Foundation, Countryside Council for Wales, QinetiQ and Chelonia Ltd.