Welcome to the website for the monitoring of marine mammals in the Adriatic Sea!

Have you seen a dolphin? Record your observation and become a part of the dolphin project!

Use your smartphone and the CROdolphin_little app and report the details about your sighting.

What is in the database?

1. data about all dead stranded marine mammals
2. dolphin sightings reported with the CROdolphin_little app
3. scientific field surveys

Which marine mammal species live in the Adriatic Sea?

Bottlenose dolphin(Tursiops truncatus)
dobri dupin

Striped dolphin(Stenella coeruleoalba)
plavobijeli dupin

Risso's dolphin(Grampus griseus)
glavati dupin

Mediterranean monk seal(Monachus monachus)
sredozemna medvjedica

Fin whale(Balaenoptera physalus)
veliki sjeverni kit

Aim of the project

All marine mammal observations in the Adriatic Sea are recorded with the marine mammal monitoring system. The collected data are important for the monitoring of marine mammal populations.

Research on these species started with the work of Prof. Hrvoje Gomerčić. It has been going on since 1990 and the research results have been published in scientific and professional articles, diploma and doctoral theses and they have been presented on conferences. These papers are available at:

http://www-staro.vef.unizg.hr/dolphins/radovi/popis.htm

About the monitoring system

Croatia is obliged to monitor the population status of marine mammals according to international agreements and national laws. All marine mammals are listed as protected animal species in Croatia since 1995. Killing, catching, harassment or destroying of their habitat is punishable by law.

The system enables you to see the observations about a certain marine mammal species and to follow the movements of a specimen. The system allows the photographs to be uploaded. This enhances the reliability of the reported data and allows the photo-identification of specimen.

Photo-identification

The dolphins get scars along the body during their life. These scars make them discernible among themselves and allow identification of a certain specimen. Repeated sightings of a photo-identified dolphin enable the study of the habitat of an individual. Each animal has the name in the database.

Project team

The marine mammal monitoring system was created in a cooperation between the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Faculty of Science University of Zagreb, non-governmental organisation Val from Zagreb (www.val-nature.hr) and Gesellschaft zur Rettung der Delphine (GRD) from Munich, Germany (www.delphinschutz.org).

Data rights

The data in the base are the property of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine University of Zagreb. A written permission has to be requested if you wish to use them. Please send suggestions, comments and every bit of interesting facts to the database manager.