Shark Bay Dolphin Research
Monkey Mia – Useless Loop | Western Australia
The famous dolphins of Shark Bay have been studied since the early 1980s, when graduate students Richard Connor and Rachel Smolker founded the project. Almost 45 years of research has revealed insights into remarkable behaviour, cooperation, communication and tool use.
Shark Bay is a busy place, full of dolphin friends and foe. Seagrass meadows are food for turtles and dugongs, and shelter for fish; sand flats and mangroves are home to invertebrates, rays and sharks; deep channels are biodiversity hotspots and hunting grounds for sea snakes, sharks and tool-using dolphins.
The bay’s dolphins lead rich social lives and use a repertoire of culturally transmitted foraging innovations, but this unique ecosystem is under threat from climate breakdown. With warming seas and increasingly extreme weather events, will these remarkable animals be able to adapt?
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