Dolphin Biology People: Dagmar

Dagmar Knäbel first came to Galaxidi in 2009 to volunteer in our dolphin project. She was happy with her experience and returned in the following year. In 2012 she started fundraising for OceanCare through a campaign of her own invention, "Pixels for Dolphins": Dagmar used the money made as a freelance digital photographer to support dolphin conservation. When OceanCare informed us about a mysterious German donor, we did not know it was her.

As we found out, and remembered the passion and committment that Dagmar displayed as a volunteer in the early years, we offered her to come to Greece as a field assistant. It turned out to be a good idea, because Dagmar helped with the cropping of thousands of dorsal fin images and got involved in field data collection and logistics. She also toured the streets of Galaxidi and took dozens of good photographs (some being posted on this Blog).

In her "normal" life, Dagmar is a mother and a secondary school teacher of Biology and Chemistry in Erfurt, Germany. She holds a M.Sc. in Environmental Biology at the University of Wales, Swansea.

(Photo by G. Bearzi, July 2013)

Striped dolphin baby - 4

A baby striped dolphin closes the exposed eye as she/he surfaces to breath. The sun strikes hard and dolphins wear no sunglasses.

(Photo by S. Bonizzoni, Gulf of Corinth, Greece)

Keel art - 2

Inspired by Keith Laban's "Found Paintings".

(Photo by S. Bonizzoni, Southern Evoikos Gulf, Greece)

Keel art - 1

Inspired by Keith Laban's "Found Paintings".

(Photo by S. Bonizzoni, Southern Evoikos Gulf, Greece)

Coastal striped dolphins

Striped dolphins in the Gulf of Corinth sometimes get quite close to the coast. The mother and calf photographed here are surfacing a few hundred metres off the northern shore of the Peloponnese.

(Photo by S. Bonizzoni)

Shearwater in the mirror

A Scopoli's shearwater Calonectris diomedea on a low-altitude flight.

Do these birds wonder who is the strange individual who always flies upside-down, just below? Or have they eventually realized it is their own reflected image?

Many aquatic species spend much of their time near a water surface that, when calm, accurately reflects their image (both from above and from below). Do they "recognize" themselves?

The question isn't as trivial as it may seem, because mirror self-recognition is sometimes associated with awareness of self - a cognitive ability previously thought to be exclusive to humans and apes, and now known to be present in dolphins.

E.g.:

Marino L, Reiss D, Gallup GG Jr (1994) Mirror self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins: implications for comparative investigations of highly dissimilar species. In: Parker ST, Mitchell RW, Boccia ML (eds) Self-awareness in animals and humans: developmental perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 380–391

Reiss D, Marino L (2001) Mirror self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: a case of cognitive convergence. Proc Natl A Sci USA 98(10):5937–5942

but also consider:

Schilhab TSS (2004) What mirror self-recognition in nonhumans can tell us about aspects of self. Biology and Phylosophy 19(1):111-126

(Photo by S. Bonizzoni, Gulf of Corinth, Greece)

Coastal bottlenose dolphin

An adult common bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus jumps near the northern coast of the Gulf of Corinth, Greece.

(Photo by S. Bonizzoni)

Unidentified fish

Can anyone help us identify this fish species, observed in the port of Xilokastro?

(Photo by S. Piwetz, Gulf of Corinth, Greece, July 2013)

Interviewing fishermen - 4

Silvia interviewing a fisherman in the Argolikos Gulf, Greece.

(Photo by G. Bearzi)

Eggplant Santorini

Eggplant Santorini is 1 Euro per kg at Galaxidi's colourful street market.

Living and working in this rural part of Greece, we often rely on farmers' markets and small local shops to buy provisions for our dolphin research project.

(Photo by D. Knäbel)

The tire iron and the tamale

Read the ORIGINAL STORY published in The New York Times.

Artisanal fisherman in Greece - 12

This fisherman seems to have descended from Mount Olympos to set his trammel nets.

(Photo by S. Bonizzoni, Itea, Greece)

Morning light

A young striped dolphin jumps in front of our inflatable in a soft morning light. It is 7:08 AM and dolphins are fully awake.

(Photo by G. Bearzi, Gulf of Corinth, Greece)

Striped dolphin body language

A striped dolphin opens its mouth, possibly a warning sign to other group members.

While dolphins may not have a complex facial mimics (they can do little else than opening and closing their mouth), they certainly can express emotions and convey information about their "mood" by the way they move, occasionally also producing bubble streams via their blowhole.

And of course they possess a rich vocal repertory of pulsed and modulated sounds.

(Photo by G. Bearzi, Gulf of Corinth, Greece)

No more "successful" people

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.

-- David W. Orr

From "Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect", Island Press, Washington, 2004 (10th anniversary edition)

Social, not conventional business

Today’s crisis is a man-made crisis, not a natural disaster like a tsunami. How did it come about? We’ve converted the financial market into a gambling casino. This market is now driven by greed and speculation, rather than by real production. This is what happens when you move away from a real economy to a speculative economy. (-- continues)

Quartet

Elena, Silvia, Isabelle and Dagmar on the inflatable. Elena and Isabelle attended a dolphin biology training course organized at our field station in partnership with OceanCare. Dagmar is a field assistant and a former volunteer.

(Photo by G. Bearzi, Gulf of Corinth, Greece, July 2013)

Early morning survey

Time 5:55 AM, leaving the port of Galaxidi, four people on board, sea state 1.

(Photo by G. Bearzi, August 2013)

Striped dolphin

(Photo by S. Bonizzoni, Gulf of Corinth, Greece)

Mixed dolphins underwater

Striped dolphins Stenella coeruleoalba swim with short-beaked common dolphins Delphinus delphis and other individuals showing a somewhat intermediate pigmentation pattern.

(Photos from video by G. Bearzi, Gulf of Corinth, Greece)

Juvenile seagull

(Photo by Jens Kramer, Gulf of Corinth, Greece)

Monk seal sighted from coast

On July 26th we casually stopped near a beach in Eretria, in the Southern Evoikos Gulf (Greece) and spotted a Mediterranean monk seal Monachus monachus that was swimming some 30-40 m off the coast.

The animal performed repeated dives around an anchored speedboat, while a few ladies were floating in nearby waters to escape the summer heat. The ladies did not notice, but a few people on the beach saw us taking photos, spotted the seal, and stood there to watch. There was no animosity or particular excitement, as if observing a Critically Endangered large marine mammal swimming among bathers was a normal occurrence.

Our observation lasted about 30 minutes, between 18:35 and 19:10. When we left the seal was still performing the same behaviour, i.e. surfacing quietly and diving around the same speedboat. Too bad we did not have our boat, or any means of obtaining closer photos. The ones above were taken from the beach with a 200 mm lens.

The sighting position is 38˚23'30''N 23˚47'09''E.

(Photos by G. Bearzi, July 2013)

Working with fishermen - 2

Silvia inspecting longline-caught bluefin tuna and swordfish.

(Photo by D. Knäbel, Galaxidi, Greece)

Working with fishermen - 1

Silvia jumps on board to talk with longline fisherman Dimitris, after he and his brother Iannis returned to the port with a boatload of bluefin tuna and swordfish. A rare event that raised much excitement in town.

(Photo by D. Knäbel, Galaxidi, Greece)

Striped dolphin exhaling

A striped dolphin breathes out before breaking the water surface.

(Photo by G. Bearzi, Gulf of Corinth, Greece)