The project
What does"Azores delphis project" stand for? "Azores" is the archipelago where the project takes place: islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Portugal. We are situated on the island of São Miguel, the main and largest island of the Archipelago. "delphis" comes from the species that we study. The scientific name of common dolphin is Delphinus delphis. "Project" comes from what this started as: the overarching PhD of Fadia Al Abbar who looks at common dolphin interactions with tourism activities off the coast of São Miguel, Azores. Besides this PhD project we aim to understand more about the local population, site fidelity, and their interaction with swim-with-dolphin activities. We use Photo ID, a drone, acoustics, and land observations to study these species in their natural behavioural state and interactive state with tourist boats.

Blogs
We publish weekly updates when we are in the field, and we also write blogs about common dolphins around the Azores.

Instagram
#azoresdelphisproject
Follow us on instagram azores.delphis.project

Current status
Our fieldwork has been terminated/paused at least from 2024 until 2025. A PhD is currently being completed and publications are currently in progress...
Please only contact us if you are interested in doing a Master's thesis at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, without fieldwork. We apologize for any inconvenience! We will update our website and social media pages if anything changes.
Updated 27/11/2023