News

8 Oct

Master’s thesis on bottlenose dolphins

Viviane Yuri Oide Komati recently completed her master’s thesis under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Dominik Martin-Creuzburg at the Institute for Freshwater Ecology at the Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus-Senftenberg. Graduate biologist Christina Sommer from M.E.E.R. e.V. acted as an external supervisor and second reviewer. Under the title “Factors influencing the group size and composition of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the waters off La Gomera,” Viviane analysed part of M.E.E.R. ev’s sighting database, which covers 26 years worth of data. She discovered interesting connections between the group size and group composition of bottlenose dolphins and environmental factors such as the...

8 Oct

The battle over Icelandic whaling

After the Icelandic government had suspended fin whaling until August 31, 2023 on the basis of a report by the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST) (see https://m-e-e-r.de/islaendischer-walfang-eingestellt-fuer-immer/), it decided at the end of last month to not extend this band until the end of the season. Therefore, Hvalur hf., the only company still whaling in Iceland took up hunting whales again from September 1st. Since then, eleven fin whales have been killed. Nevertheless, MAST recently temporarily suspended the operation of one of the two whaling vessels (Hvalur 8). This is because monitoring of the catches demonstrated that the hunt...

15 Sep

Icelandic Whaling Stopped – Forever?

The Icelandic government has suspended whaling until at least August 31, 2023, based on a recently published report by the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST), which determined Fin whaling to be illegal and not in compliance with the Icelandic Animal Welfare Act. In the coming months, the Department of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries will evaluate possible changes in hunting techniques and other restrictions to decide whether whaling can resumed in the future. It is no secret that hunting whales is an extremely cruel undertaking, because the animals often only die many minutes or sometimes even hours after being harpooned...

5 May

November 2023: the behavioural biology internship is now bookable!

The new course dates have been set: 11. – 25. November 2023 !!! Course content: We are now including a new focus area: in addition to general information about the whale and dolphin species encountered, behavioural biology methods for data collection, various aspects on the threats and conservation efforts for the animals and their habitat, we will also be dealing with bioacoustics: how do whales and dolphins communicate with each other, what does it sound like and how does ambient noise affect it? This year’s team includes the biologist Elke Burkhardt, who also has a lot of expedition experience from...

13 Apr

Milestone for MEER’s work in the Canaries

We can be really proud of ourselves, because to coincide with our 25th anniversary, MEER was invited to participate in an expert workshop on marine mammal conservation throughout Spain. Things moved very quickly. There was just over a week between the invitation and arrival, so a lot of flexibility was required. Our 2nd chairman Volker Smit accepted the invitation without further ado. Our research department (Christina Sommer) made sure to compile the correct sighting data in up-to-date maps for this workshop at very short notice and as a result we were able to provide clear information on the various cetacean...

12 Apr

Save the date – ECS 2023

The next ECS workshop will once again be held in Spain on the 17th April. We are thrilled to be conducting one of our successful workshops in the run-up to the “European Cetacean Society Conference“(ESC). The workshops will be taking place on the 16th and 17th April in the coastal town of O’Grove in Galicia. The all-day workshop “Communicating Marine Mammal Science to the General Public” is co-organised by M.E.E.R. e.V. and will be held on the 17th April. The content of this year’s workshop will be dedicated to this year’s conference overarching theme “Our Oceans our Future”. >> ECS...

13 Mar

Historic treaty to protect the high seas

After 15 years of negotiations, the UN member states, including Germany, have agreed on a treaty to protect the high seas. In the future, at least 30% of the world’s high seas, which have so far lacked any protection by law, are to be designated as protected areas. In addition to this, any expeditions, economic projects and other activities within these areas are to be assessed for environmental compatibility. The treaty must now be ratified by the individual member states. Upon ratification, marine protected areas can be designated by a three-quarters majority of member states, preventing obstruction by individual nations....

20 Feb

MEER is now on gooding

MEER e.V. now has an association profile on the donation website “gooding.de”. With this the association or one of its specific projects can very easily be supported with online purchases. Depending on the online shop, approx. 5% of the purchase value (excluding VAT and shipping) goes to the association of choice. There are no additional costs. If you install the gooding toolbar in your browser, you will be directly informed that your current purchase supports MEER e.V. More under this link: https://www.gooding.de/m-e-e-r-e-v-107631

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