Research course - Effects of Anthropogenic Noise on Marine Mammals

Research course - Effects of Anthropogenic Noise on Marine Mammals with a Specific View of Harbour Porpoises and Bottlenose Dolphins 

RESEARCH COURSE:

Effects of Anthropogenic Noise on Marine Mammals with a Specific View of Harbour Porpoises and Bottlenose Dolphins – Research course

9 – 15 July 2016

Kolmården Wildlife Park, Sweden

Gain hands on experience studying the impacts of anthropogenic noise on bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoises during this seven day research course that combines traditional lectures with practical field and laboratory work.

Lectures on the fundamentals of underwater acoustics, marine mammal acoustics, impacts of sounds on marine mammals, experimental design, and data analysis and interpretation are delivered by experts in the field. Acoustic data will be collected using multiple platforms during field trips. Guest speakers will share their research on how dolphin cognitive studies are conducted with captive dolphins.

Lecturers:

Dr Mats Amundin

Mats is Senior Advisor at Kolmården Wildlife Park and guest professor in Zoology at Linköping University, Sweden. His research interests include bioacoustics with emphasis on sound production in odontocetes and animal behaviour. Mats served as the project coordinator of SAMBAH (Static Acoustic Monitoring of the Baltic Sea Harbour Porpoise) for five years and as an acoustic expert for Sweden at the ASCOBANS (Agreement for the Protection of Small Cetaceans in the Baltic and North Sea) meetings.

Dr Paul Lepper

Paul is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Electronic, Electrical & Systems Engineering, Loughborough University, UK. He specialises in underwater acoustics, bioacoustics and underwater technologies. These include acoustic and optical underwater systems, sound field measurement, modelling and simulation.

Activities covered include:

- Fundamentals of underwater acoustics and marine mammal acoustic

- Impacts of sound on marine life

- Experimental methods for evaluating impacts of sound

- Experimental design including acoustic equipment

- Field techniques and data collection using acoustic platform

- Data processing, analysis and interpretation

- Dolphin cognitive studies field trip

Kolmården Wildlife Park, Sweden’s largest zoo, is home to 600 animals from around the world. The 370 acre park opened its doors in 1965 and has been a top attraction ever since. Kolmården overlooks Bråviken Bay in the beautiful Swedish countryside south of Stockholm.

Please contact us for further information by email (training@seiche.com) or look at our website ( www.seichetraining.com ). In case you're not interested but have colleagues or peers who might be, we'd appreciate you forwarding this email and attached flyer.

EU-ZooS XXI - what do the public want us to tell them?

EU-ZooS XXI - what do the public want us to tell them?

EU-ZooS XXI is an innovative new education project, sponsored by the European Commission, designed to involve the general public in designing the communication strategies for zoos. The three-year project is being led by a consortium of zoos and aquaria , involving Zoo Marine Portugal, Zoo Marine Italy, Kolmarden Zoo, Sweden, Niabi Zoo, USA, and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in Jersey, British Channel Islands. The project will consider how zoos can more effectively communicate a message about biodiversity conservation, with a particular focus on endangered species, invasive species and ecological connectivity. According to Education officer and partner in the project Birgitta Amundin from Kolmården Zoo Sweden,

 “As zoo educators we spend much of our time thinking about what we want to say and how we are going to convey a sense of passion and urgency to our zoo visitors. This project provides us with a rare opportunity to listen to what the visitors want to be told and how”.

A vital part of the project will be the facilitation of public participation workshops in each of the four zoos and aquaria in which a cross-section of people will be asked to develop their own ideas of what sort of educational message should be given to zoo visitors and whether this should be through talks, educational packs, exhibits or more interactive experiences. The ideas generated in these workshops will then be put into practice in each of the establishments with pre- and post-evaluations being conducted on their effectiveness at conveying a conservation message. Jamie Copsey from Durrell who will be hosting the first of these workshops in Jersey in October says,

“I’m excited to have the chance to genuinely engage with our zoo visitors and others who may not visit us for whatever reason, to find out how we can more effectively connect what we want to say with what they want to hear- if we are to really begin to change people’s behaviour our messages need to be relevant to their everyday lives. We can talk about deforestation in Indonesia or palm oil plantations, but how relevant are these ideas to the people we so desperately want to connect with? I can’t wait to start really listening to what the ‘lay person’ thinks and feels and how we can better reach out to them through different mediums”.

As well as running these workshops and developing some of the ideas that come out of them, this project will involve the production of a range of educational materials on biodiversity, endangered species, invasive species and ecological connectivity. These materials will be made available to other zoos along with lessons learnt in how to run these public participation workshops and how effective the final mini-projects are in each establishment. It is hoped that some of the models developed as a result will be relevant to zoos and aquaria throughout Europe and beyond. To find out more about the project and how to contact the project team please visit our website at

http://www.euzoos-xxi.org/index.php

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