Did you know that dolphins, porpoises, and seals are actively living on the Sussex coast? The temperate waters of the North East Atlantic are some of the most productive waters in the world, and Sussex was home to dolphins, porpoises and even occasionally whales before large-scale industrial fishing came into the area. Now, with the conservation efforts happening along the Sussex coast, fish stocks and larger marine life are returning to the area.
The Worlds Better team recently ventured out to the Rampion Wind Farm with Ross Boats and the Sussex Dolphin Project to learn about the local wind farm and marine life. This was a great outing, and though we did not spot any dolphins, porpoises, or seals, it was a fantastic opportunity to learn about these projects based just a stone’s throw from our office in Brighton.
The Sussex Dolphin Project is working to protect dolphins along the Sussex coastline through research, awareness, and education with the goal of delivering ecosystem-level restoration and rejuvenation. The local community is at the heart of their organisation, making the study of marine life more accessible through delivering workshops and education, and engaging with the community to raise awareness of the dolphins living locally, and how best to interact with them.
One of the great initiatives that the Sussex Dolphin Project has implemented is their reporting tool on their website. As a not-for-profit organisation, the project relies on the eyes and ears of the local community where they have not yet been able to fund the purchase of a boat to take out to record sightings themselves. This makes their mission for awareness and education key to achieving some of their research, as they give the public the opportunity to report sightings and support the project’s work to understand the distribution and abundance of local cetacean species.
The work of the Sussex Dolphin Project has been paramount to building a view of marine life on the Sussex coast, whilst they work as part of the South Coast Bottlenose Dolphin Consortium to identify local dolphins and understand their behaviours, with the goal of protecting the marine environment and safeguard the local species.
Through championing the protection of marine habitats, the Sussex Dolphin Project are truly making a difference to the local marine life and local community education. To find out more, you can visit their website.
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