Along Africa’s vast west coast, very little is know about the Atlantic humpback dolphin (Sousa teuszii)—now a marine biologist from Senegal is aiming to change that.
Diana Seck, a research assistant at the African Aquatic Conservation Fund, says that producing the first ever photo identification catalog will help provide information about abundance, distribution, seasonal habitat use, and long-term threat information for the critically endangered dolphin species.
“I’ve been able to identify more than 100 individual dolphins in the Saloum Delta on two survey missions, and I’m sure we’ll be able to identify more with time,” she says, “This is important because we are trying to determine the number of individuals in the population (believed to be the largest anywhere in the species’ range), and to learn more about their behavior and migration patterns.”
Seck began training in boat surveys and photo-identification in 2021 and over time adopted the project and had the opportunity to build it into a Master’s research project.
Seck, who is also a Fellow of the New England Aquarium’s Marine Conservation Action Fund (MCAF), says that the greatest opportunity of the project is that other countries in the dolphin’s range can use the photo ID catalog as a template to start their own studies.
“This is important because there is a lot of lack of information on Sousa teuszii and with my project we will also have the first population estimate with the Mark-Recapture Analysis technique and this will allow us to set future conservation plans for this species,” she says.
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Seck grew up in Senegal and did all her schooling in the nation’s capital of Dakar.
“From a very early age, I’ve always been attracted to anything to do with nature and the environment,” she says, “As a result, working in this profession today is a natural extension of my deep-rooted passion: that of a true nature lover.”
Seck graduated from the Lycée des Parcelles Assainies in Dakar with a baccalaureate in science in 2013, before undertaking an undergraduate degree in aquaculture at the Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, and also started a master’s degree in aquaculture at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar.
Seck says that at the same time that she was doing her Masters degree at the Institut Universitaire de la Pêche et de l’Aquaculture, she was working as a sales consultant and then a recruitment officer in the same call center when she received an email from her university about an organization looking for a research assistant and an administrative assistant.
“I said to myself, ‘Why not apply?’ You never know where it might lead,” she says, going on to land the research assistant role and her first assignment coincided with the start of the Atlantic humpback dolphin project in the Saloum Delta.
“I asked myself a lot of questions, especially about my abilities, but with time I realized that I was made for this job,” Seck says, “So my aim today is to be the best in my field.”
She says building capacity is important in the region.
“We have over 35 species of marine mammals in West Africa, and it’s up to us to protect them and make sure that future generations can enjoy them, and because we’re the ones who suffer most from climate change and environmental degradation, especially from overfishing and bycatch,” Seck says, adding that her perspective as a Senegalese woman based in Senegal was vital to the research.
“For me, my involvement will mean that in the long run, we will have our local experts who will engage in the conservation of these species and which are sometimes endemic to the West African zone,” she says, “For this, we need committed youth who are thirsty for knowledge.”
Seck works with biologist Lucy Keith-Diagne, founder and director of the African Aquatic Conservation Fund in Senegal.
Keith-Diagne ended up in Africa in 2006 at the invitation of a colleague and spent most of the next seven years in Gabon studying them, trying to map out the distinct populations of this usually shy, nocturnal mammal, whose range is spread across 21 countries along Africa’s Atlantic coast.
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