DMAD team were invited to realize a presentation for the members of a Montenegrin NGO called NVO Nasa Akaija/NGO Our Action.

First, we prepared an activity with all the participants in which the idea was to learn about some marine animals by imitating them according to their movements or sounds.

Then, after having everyone attention, we started the presentation talking about the two big groups of cetaceans, some characteristics of species that can be found here in Montenegro like the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), and current threats that are affecting their populations.

Subsequently, we highlighted the importance of dolphins for marine ecosystems and why cetaceans research realize by DMAD is important for the conservation of marine mammals.

Last but not least, we invited all the participants to follow our social media for more information about current encounters we are having in our surveys and future activities.

Also, we encouraged the participants of becoming “citizen scientists” by sending to us pictures of the sightings they may have in the future with cetaceans with some extra information like date and time, coordinates of the sighting place, and number of individuals.

With the help of NVO Nasa Akaija/NGO Our Action, we realized two beach clean ups in two different beaches in Montenegro where we had the participation of approximately 50 people on each one. It was a really nice experience since we did not expect that large number of helpers during the activities, and we also had participants of all ages.

As a public outreach project, we decided to create marine animals like sharks using recycled plastic bottles. The original idea was to realize this activity to kids from different schools, but due to the COVID situation in the country, it was impossible to organize it. Nevertheless, we gave the idea to DMAD team so that when visits to schools can be made, they carry out the activity with other interns and volunteers.

In order to continue with the citizen science project proposed by DMAD, after each land survey realized, we went to the surrounding cities to hang out some posters around the marinas and ports. In those posters we invite all the people to become citizen scientists by reporting the encounters they can have with dolphins and other cetaceans. We required information such as location, pictures, and date of the encounter.