Ecology, status, fisheries interactions and conservation of coastal Indo-Pacific humpback and bottlenose dolphins on the west coast of Madagascar

Principal Investigators: Cerchio, Andrianarivelo, Rosenbaum

The proposed site-based work will contribute to fill in gaps in available information, develop long-term monitoring of important populations, and extend the range of conservation actions to mitigate anthropogenic impact in remote regions. This work will provide the first robust assessments of population abundance, population structure, habitat preference and distribution, and factors determining these population characteristics for Indo-Pacific humpback and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in Madagascar. Interactions with artisanal fisheries will be assessed and quantified, and information made available to inform MPA development in the focused geographic area. Principal objectives are given below.

(1)     assess status, distribution and habitat preference for populations of Indo-Pacific humpback and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in the northwest of Madagascar.

(2)     Assess the extent of artisanal fisheries interactions with coastal dolphin populations in the northwest of Madagascar, for both incidental by-catch and directed hunting.

(3)     Respond to identified threats in the southwest of Madagascar through a series of community workshops and outreach measures in four targeted villages.