Guiana Dolphin long term survey by deep learning

The Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis), commonly known as estuarine dolphin is one of the ten dolphins in great danger of extinction, currently classified as “near threatened” in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN, 2019). Indeed this species has restricted global distribution [1] as it is only found across the South-Western Atlantic OceanCentral and South America coast and is notably resident of the Guiana coastline. Due to its sedentary nature, Guiana dolphins are vulnerable to its habitat degradation and fall easily victim to bycatch in gillnets [2]. Monitoring the population activity and assessing the anthropic impact is therefore fundamental for conservation. Since 2021 a long term survey has been deploying multiple hydrophones using deep learning for the automatic detection of Guiana dolphin vocalization. With the beginning of shoreline pile driving in 2023, we could simultaneously conduct the anthropophony survey in one of the 3 stations, assessing the human influences on this endangered species.

[1] Borobia, Monica & Siciliano, Salvatore & Lodi, Liliane & Hoek, Wyb. (2011). Distribution of the South American dolphin Sotalia fluviatilis. Canadian Journal of Zoology. 69. 1025-1039. 10.1139/z91-148.

[2] Almeida, Inaê & Percequillo, Alexandre & Rollo, Mario. (2024). Surviving the Tide: Assessing Guiana dolphin persistence amidst growing threats in a protected estuary in South-eastern Brazil. Journal for Nature Conservation. 82. 1-9. 10.1016/j.jnc.2024.126713.