The Peruvian Amazon: The River Dolphin Thesis

­­Bélanger A, Wright AJ, Gomez C, Shutt JD, Chota K, Bodmer R. (2022). River dolphins (Inia geoffrensis and Sotalia fluviatilis) in the Peruvian Amazon: habitat preferences and feeding behavior. LAJAM.  https://doi.org/10.5597/lajam00268

 
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The beggining.

I wrote a formal proposal for my project to submit to Opwall, while simultaneously searching for an honours supervisor. I finally teamed up with Dr.Andrew Wright as my supervisor.

I ran fundraisers with two other students participating in an Opwall project, to raise funds for our trips. The fundraisers included bake sales and a club night where we partner with a local club. We raised over $1000!

 
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The Project

There are two dolphin species in the Peruvian Amazon: the pink river dolphin and the tucuxi dolphin. The goal of my project was to determine which habitats are important to the dolphin’s survival. I wanted to know where each species was found most often and which habitat they use the most for feeding.

 
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The Trip.

I lived on a boat for 6 weeks in the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon with dozens of other students, scientists, and local guides. Every day, twice a day, I went on dolphin surveys to collect data for the long-term data set, while also collecting additional data for my specific project.

On the boat surveys, I helped the lead scientist teach the high school students how to record dolphin sightings and how to distinguish between the various behaviours.

I also participated in many other surveys, both aquatic and terrestrial. I saw amazing wildlife including caiman, tropical birds, and sloths.

 
Photo by: Nicole Ure

Photo by: Nicole Ure

The Write Up

I had three components to my project: 1) determining habitat preference by analyzing dolphin density in macro (river, lake, confluence) and micro (bend, edge, and center of river) habitats, 2) analyzing the prevalence of feeding behaviour in each of these habitats, and 3) displaying dolphin sightings on a spot map.

With the help of my supervisor, I cleaned up three years of data from the Opwall long-term data set. I used R to run my statistics and create graphs. Finally, I used ArcGIS to create maps of dolphin sightings.

 

I conducted a thorough literature review, collected my data in one of the most amazing locations on earth, presented my project to my fellow honours student classmates, as well as at the annual Dalhousie University Cameron Conference. Finally, I analyzed and presented my data in my complete undergraduate thesis manuscript and received an A+. A revised version of my manuscript it now published in the Latin American Journal of Aquatic Mammals.