Angie Gullan's Page

DolphinCareAfrica was founded in ’98 as the research and conservation arm of Dolphin EnCOuntours for the purpose that would benefit the dolphins and marine environment in Ponta do Ouro. It was evident that with the ‘swim with dolphins’ prohibition in South Africa, Mozambique would soon join the elite number of countries that are fortunate enough to host marine mammals and allow swim with activities. This would - if left unregulated become un-sustainable. The writing was on the wall.

One of the first aims was to start a collaborated long term monitoring project of the dolphins that would be funded by encountours, the sister commercial dolphins swim operator. Each time a program was facilitated, baseline data and images were collected. Secondly was to campaign for a code of conduct to be followed that included a one boat policy and non invasive swim procedures when encountering dolphins in the water and by boat. Third but certainly not least - early pioneers to the area envisaged a marine protected in hope that the unique bio-diversity of the area would be cared for.

To date over 5000 encounters have been recorded over the years, and 30 000+ images taken, validating the organizations longterm commitment to the study and protection of the dolphins in the area.  

The project’s long term data sets have successfully been used in obtaining abundance & identification information on the resident  inshore bottlesnose dolphins  (Tursiops aduncus) and the rare indo-pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa plumbea). Dca contributed to the establishment of the Ponta Partial Marine Reserve, a longterm goal finally achieved thanks to the many reports and correspondence with government over the years.  The project has aided studies on sustainable dolphin tourism in east Africa, a long-term study into how dolphins are affected by increased tourism & what measures should be taken to protect this species for generations to come.