I’m Shanan Atkins, a biologist with a passion for marine conservation. I live by the saying „think globally, act locally.“ I run a project studying the conservation biology of the Endangered Indian Ocean humpback dolphin in a conservation hotspot in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I collaborate with other humpback dolphin biologists in South Africa and we pool the data we collect locally to try to answer conservation questions at a national level. Recently, I was tasked with building and coordinating HuDoNet, the Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin Conservation Network, which is a network of humpback dolphin researchers spanning the species’ range – from the southern tip of Africa to the southern tip of India. Before I began that task, I was busy with my PhD in which I focussed on one particular threat to humpback dolphins – incidental catches in gillnets set for sharks. For this, I applied systems thinking and investigated the human-wildlife conflict with sharks more holistically, identifying and engaging the people who have stakes in this conflict, in the hope of empowering them to conserve the dolphins, sharks and other marine creatures.
Frag Mich Doch Mal: Shanan Atkins
