Crowded Bay for Dolphins

Land reclamation, shipping industry, ferry traffic and tourism - the Bay of Gibraltar is continuously getting smaller. The Helping Hand Trust intends to monitor potential effects on dolphins and their habitat.

On our boat trips into the Bay of Gibraltar we still come across dolphins - though during our latest outings we have not seen as many of them as before. This might have many reasons, but we decided to set up a program to find the cause for these drooping numbers - the minimum period of monitoring will be a year with at least one trip per week. In the framework of this program we will try to determine the impact which constant changes and increasing human activity in the Bay of Gibraltar might have on the dolphins. And of course we will keep you updated on our findings.

The pictures below were taken today at 1.30pm in the centre of the bay. We saw a family group of ten striped dolphins, but no signs of common dolphins (instead we watched migrating butterflies crossing the Strait of Gibraltar on a heading of 186 degrees South in light winds - according to our vessel Nimo's log traversing at four knots).