Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Say hi to Lovina's less crowded neighbour: Bondalem and Tejakula



Fraser's dolphins off Bondalem in March'12


When I was doing my PhD in Lovina, I was invited to a talk at the local Rotary Club Chapter. They were excited to learn what I was doing there; but I was more excited to learn about totally new information (at least to me) from an expatriate lady who came all the way from Tejakula (in eastern Buleleng Regency). The lady told me that she and her friends never bothered to go to Lovina for dolphin watching because they had a better alternative: Apparently, they have dolphins too in Tejakula!

I was excited and curious about the presence of another dolphin population in Buleleng, just 50km eastward of Lovina. But I never got to go there. I just never made time. 

Anyway, when I was already working at Conservation International (well, still is), I had several meetings with government officers of Buleleng about Bali MPA Network (more about this in another post, perhaps). There, I gave a presentation on the results of my PhD. To my surprise, a guy came to see me afterwards and said that he often saw dolphins off Bondalem Village in Tejakula (east Buleleng)! This guy (Mr Gede Mertha) is the local fisheries extension officer, by the way, a very nice guy. 

Whale barf and perfume!

I once wrote here about the importance of being able to wrap our thesis in a three minutes talk (just in case you meet an important donor or a related minister in an elevator). Well, PhDcomics had gone to the extreme and made a 'my thesis in two-minutes' competition. This cool two-minutes video on PhDComics.com of Baillie Redfern's PhD thesis about ambergris (sperm whale barf) and perfume is one of the winners.




From the video info at YouTube:

Friday, November 16, 2012

Whale Protected Areas Google Earth

Just a shortie this time. I just found this one online, Google Earth's Whale Protected Areas 3D tour. Very cool and informative! 



Here's what the video information on YouTube said about the project: