When swordfish conservation biologists eat swordfish

I wrote a short essay that was accepted as an Editorial in the renown scientific journal Conservation Biology.

This article is now in press and its published version should be out in February 2009. I would like to share it with Mediterranean Conservation readers ahead of print.

The essay is meant to be food for thought -- for people including myself.

Giovanni Bearzi

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Bearzi G. In press. When swordfish conservation biologists eat swordfish. Conservation Biology (scheduled February 2009). (84 Kb)

Save the Mediterranean tuna

Tuna are vanishing, worldwide, due to unsustainable fishing pressure and short-sighted environmental management.

That tuna are collapsing is now perfectly clear. It has been repeated by a number of scientists and experts, and even by fishermen. So, it’s time for us to act. If you want to change the situation, there is something you can do.

If you don’t buy tuna, you give to this amazing species a chance of survival. Take action now: stop consuming tuna, and recommend to your friends to do the same.

Silvia Bonizzoni / Tethys Research Institute
(Drawing by Massimo Demma)

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For more information:
www.wildlifeextra.com
www.panda.org
environment.newscientist.com

How does one become a cetacean researcher?

My suggestion is to come up with reasonably clear ideas about what you want to do, where and how. Ideally, one should aim to something felt as important, and also feasible based on one’s skills and existing opportunities.

I started working on cetaceans by volunteering on board oceanographic research vessels - looking for dorsal fins and flukes during the day and working in the wet lab during the night. Then I used my father’s small inflatable boat to start a study on dolphins around Losinj, Croatia. Eventually, this became the longest-running study of bottlenose dolphins in the Mediterranean.

Don’t miss opportunities to make experience. You may try to participate in some field or lab activity, doing work as close to your interests as possible to gain practical experience on that particular subject. Find out what is the area where you do particularly well (this may include lab work, photography, statistics or even management, environmental policy, public awareness). If you ‘feel good’ doing something and have a sense of being ‘at home’ whenever you do that, then you may have found your own specialty. Go for it, and try to develop a specific project or an interesting proposal to motivate other people and attract funding.

Do not rely too much on letters and CVs. Try to meet the relevant people in person, at their offices or even in the field. Attend marine mammal and marine conservation conferences, visit various institutes and NGOs. Show that your choice of working with a person or organization is motivated and based on some kind of ‘affinity’.

Courses organized by the Tethys Research Institute can be a reasonable first step for gaining basic experience, knowing how you feel on a boat or at a field station, chat with researchers and possibly identify your areas of interest. You may consider trying different experiences and research groups before deciding what works best for you. In any case, do not put everything in somebody else’s hands: the choice should be yours.

As a general rule, you have better chances of success if you do something based on enthusiasm and passion, and you do not lose sight of your goals along the way.

Giovanni Bearzi

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Useful link:
SMM - Strategies for Pursuing a Career in Marine Mammal Science

One day of dolphin research in the field

In a recent interview for a Swiss magazine, I was asked to describe a typical day of a dolphin researcher on site.

In my experience, this involves waking up early in the morning, rushing to the research boat after having checked and set up all the equipment, spending hours scanning the sea surface in search for dorsal fins. Sometimes dolphins will be found and sometimes not, but you know that you will come back with useful data that help explaining what is going on out there.

And then spending the rest of the day entering data, lecturing to volunteers, training the assistants, discussing and solving personal issues that are inevitable when one shares the same roof with colleagues and students, fixing boats, engines and computers that never stop making trouble, refilling the fuel tanks, buying stuff at the supermarket (if one exists), running, running, running.

On some days you will have a good time over dinner, but on other occasions you may be forced to share the table with people who have little in common with you. Ups and downs, moments of glory and moments of deep frustration. Now enjoying a moment of peace with dolphins all around the boat, and then fixing a leaking toilet in a hell-like summer heat. But always having a sense of living your life at full speed, not wasting a minute, and being fully engaged in something that has a meaning.

To me, what gives a sense to this kind of hectic life in the field is the feeling that you are contributing to an attempt to preserve wildlife. If one loses track of this fundamental goal, life as a field researcher does no longer make sense. You are paid little money to work a lot and take care of a number of logistical, relational and other problems that do not look like research at all.

Therefore, it is important to realize that conservation-oriented research needs people who are equally determined and capable of recording good behavioural data during a dolphin sighting, talking to the mechanic about that weird noise made by the engine, transcribing the contract for the renting of the field station, or moping the floor. All that is equally important, and nobody is allowed to sign off the most miserable of duties.

Giovanni Bearzi

What can be done, so that Mediterranean common dolphins will survive?

(This is a portion of an interview on the decline of Mediterranean common dolphins)


A number of management actions are likely to benefit dolphins and the marine environment. Marine Protected Areas, fishery reserves (areas closed to fishing), strict enforcement of the existing laws (much of the fishing out there is illegal), to name just a few.

However, we should avoid just blaming the governments and seeing ecosystem destruction exclusively as the result of somebody else’s choices and activities.

We are partly responsible, too. As voters, in the first place. At the last political elections have we voted ‘with our wallet’, or have we attempted to shift the centre of gravity towards a more sensible environmental policy? Have we ever tried to reduce our own consumption rates, recycle, and make our lives a little more sustainable? Ultimately, the ongoing lack of respect towards the marine environment results from our collective desires and demands. People who never consider taking a train instead of an airplane, or walking instead of driving, should consider that a link might exist between their own behaviour and air pollution, or even climate change. Those who enjoy eating swordfish and tuna may want to think about the implications for the marine environment.

Whilst there are practical and feasible actions that could stop the decline of coastal dolphins in some areas, I think that we should realize that damage to the marine environment is also - at least in part - a result of our life styles and habits. Changing our own behaviour and giving up something felt as desirable can be as pleasant, and even more fulfilling, than increasing our consumption rates. The reward consists in knowing that we are part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. We do not only blame others for declining biodiversity and beauty all around us. We are actually doing our best to protect the things we treasure, and we enact consistent behaviour. Our choices might even influence those of others and eventually develop into new behavioural trends.

Giovanni Bearzi

What is Mediterranean Conservation?

Mediterranean Conservation explores the possibility of merging the communication efforts of individuals committed to marine conservation in the ancient Tethys Ocean.