{"id":471653,"date":"2026-06-02T02:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T02:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/471653\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T02:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T02:49:09","slug":"by-a-bottlenose-hundreds-of-citizen-scientists-join-nsws-first-dolphin-census-new-south-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/471653\/","title":{"rendered":"By a bottlenose: hundreds of citizen scientists join NSW\u2019s first dolphin census | New South Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking down the barrel of a telephoto lens, Dr Elizabeth Hawkins tells the dolphins circling the research boat to work it for the camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it,\u201d she says, joking to her crew. \u201cShow us some fin. Don\u2019t be shy. How about some tail? Oh that\u2019s good. The camera loves you.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the second pod of the day. It\u2019s made up of 14 dolphins, including three older juveniles \u2013 roughly equivalent to the age of a human toddler. Not long before, the boat had come across a pod of 11, including a neonate, or newborn, in human terms.<\/p>\n

Photographing the dolphins helps create a visual record that can be later analysed to identify each individual member, says Hawkins, who is the chief executive of Dolphin Research Australia. The dorsal fin acts like a fingerprint thanks to a lifetime collection of notches, nicks and scars.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these animals I\u2019ve known for over 24 years, so effectively we\u2019ve grown older together, and we\u2019re now similar ages,\u201d Hawkins says. \u201cIt\u2019s quite a special relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a long time to get to understand their ecology but also get to know them as individuals. Just like us, they all have individual personalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

These were just one of several encounters for her team \u2013 including two separate encounters with some of the first humpback whales of the season \u2013 among potentially hundreds from the volunteers who turned out on Saturday morning to take part in New South Wales\u2019 first statewide dolphin census.<\/p>\n

Participants in the first ever state-wide dolphin census along the NSW coast. Photograph: Royce Kurmelovs\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Across the state, more than 500 people registered and completed the one-hour training module to count every dolphin they saw for a minimum of 15 minutes. Participants camped at cliff sides and coastal lookouts to gaze at the ocean, fly drones or, in some cases, get out on the water in kayaks or boats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe data we will get from this is important,\u201d Hawkins says. \u201cWe don\u2019t have good information about the areas that are important to these animals and their health.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is thought there are between 400 and 500 dolphins living in the Byron Bay area alone but the number across the entire NSW coastline is not known. Across this vast distance, the most recognised species is the Indo-Pacific bottlenosed dolphin, which forms distinct communities tied to specific areas of coast.<\/p>\n

There are also 19 separate dolphin and small whale species found across NSW, many of them seasonal species such as the orca and short-beaked common dolphin that move with their food sources.<\/p>\n

What is known about these populations is relatively sparse, a problem Hawkins and ranger Andy Marshall from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife<\/a> Service sought to address when they began organising the dolphin census three years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe census was really about giving us the knowledge base to make well-informed, well-justified decisions about the populations in these locations,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Marshall, who was working across seven areas in the mid-north coast for the entire day, says he found dolphins at three sites, including a community of 40 socialising in a bay. It was a good sign, he says, as dolphins prefer spots with good food, calm conditions and clear water.<\/p>\n

Dolphins are like the canary in the coalmine, he says. \u201cIf there are healthy dolphins, it\u2019s a sign that it\u2019s a healthy place. If they disappear, it\u2019s a sign that something is going wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the risks and threats the dolphins face are emerging diseases, pollution from runoff into river systems, fishing impacts and the existential threat of climate crisis.<\/p>\n

\"DroneDrone footage captures rare \u2018super pod\u2019 of more than 1,500 dolphins off California\u2019s coast \u2013 video<\/p>\n

\u201cFor our Byron dolphins in particular, climate change is going to be one of the biggest influences of change,\u201d Hawkins says. \u201cThere are questions about how they are going to adapt to shifts in their environment. Things like current movement, prey movement and prey availability are all going to impact them in a variety of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results of the effort, enabled through financial support from the NSW state government under the Marine Estate Management Strategy, will take at least a month to collate.<\/p>\n

Hawkins and Marshall say the enthusiastic support from the public speaks to the \u201cinnate\u201d connection humans feel towards dolphins, which have long played a significant role within Indigenous coastal communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it comes from the recognition that these are high-level social beings, similar to us, with similar social systems to us, similar complexities in decision-making, sometimes in the same social context,\u201d Hawkins says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing that gets people is that these animals show curiosity to us \u2026 they seem to look back at us sometimes. There\u2019s something there that solidifies that connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the census expected to be repeated in future years, the hope is that those living along the coast will get to know the dolphins whose home they share, to the point where they may be able to identify each individual.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo care for these animals, we really need our coastal communities to act as stewards,\u201d Hawkins says. \u201cIf we\u2019re not watching how they\u2019re going, we won\u2019t know anything until it\u2019s too late. That\u2019s where these citizen scientist programs can help take care of our dolphins and our oceans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Looking down the barrel of a telephoto lens, Dr Elizabeth Hawkins tells the dolphins circling the research boat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-471653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}