Research grant on human-dolphin interactions

Great news! Our project on “Scenarios for coexistence between men and dolphins on the Mediterranean French littoral” will be funded by Fondation de France.

In this project, we will propose management strategies for human activities and populations of bottlenose dolphins to coexist. Building on the GDEGeM project, we will adopt an ecological approach to infer the spatio-temporal distribution of dolphins and their interactions with human activities, and a sociological approach to explore the attitudes and perceptions of local actors towards dolphins. We will resort to participatory modeling to build, test and use a model to assess management strategies collectively.

In passing, I kind of liked the selection procedure: we first submitted a written application, then were asked to come for an interview. I could answer the questions of the committee and have a direct feeling of what they were thinking of our project.

We will start this project officially by the end of the year, more soon.