Online portal “Takie Dela” congratulated its readers on the World Day of Whales and Dolphins by publishing the article “Being a Dolphin” with photographs by Viktor Lyagushkin and text by Bogdana Vashchenko (that’s me:) ) about the Black Sea bottlenose dolphins.
On this day, 23 July 1982, International Whaling Commission voted to end the commercial harvest of whales and dolphins.
Yesterday, November 4, our exhibition “Impossible Is Possible” opened in the House of Scientists in the town of Troitsk near Moscow. It shows photos from various projects: #Seagull, Genie Jar, Being a Dolphin, Princess of Whales. In total, 18 works of 60x90cm are presented.
The exposition aroused keen interest. Photographers who came to the opening were interested in how the images were taken, which cameras and lenses were used, and asked a lot of questions about the physics and technology of underwater shooting.
The exhibition takes place as part of the All-Russian tour of the Photoparade in Uglich and will last until November 14.
My feature story for National Geographic Georgia, illustrated with Viktor Lyagushkin’s photography, about the Black Sea dolphins and dedicated scientists. During the work on the material I was deeply impressed with Professor Natia Kopaliani from Elias University in Tbilisi, who heads the program for studying and counting marine mammals of the Black Sea. There are only seven people in her group, but they manage with a huge amount of work: this includes counting dolphins and analysis of tissues of dead sea mammals for dangerous viruses and genetic analysis, assessing the diet of dolphins based on fish otoliths found in their stomachs, a lot of samples and so on. And finally, accurate and literate work with the obtained data, which then builds the most interesting scientific publications.
The work of the group made such an impression on me that I changed my original idea to devote an article to Black Sea dwellers only, shifting the emphasis to the work of scientists.
Great news for all our readers! God bless the Apple company, our iBook 100 Facts About Dolphins is now can be opened in your iPhone (with iOS 8.4 or 9.x). Yippee!!! Gals and Guys, it opens correctly and looks good!
In reality modern bottle nosed dolphins do not travel so far on their own, but their stories are strongly connected to humans’ deeds…
The story for our German readers in Unterwasser Magazine #4/15 with outstanding Viktor’s Lyagushkin photography.
Yippee! We did it! iBook “100 FACTS ABOUT DOLPHINS” is ready and available for your iPad or Mac!!
Title “100 Facts About Dolphins”
Book type: iBook, PDF (only Russian)
Language: English, Russian
Print Length: 122 pages
Book Description: “100 Facts about Dolphins” is a book dedicated to the most famous dolphin of our planet: bottle-nosed dolphin. Are they smart? Are they kind? Are they really give names to each other? How do they give birth and grow their cubs? How do they master to live in water? How do they hunt, what do they eat?
There are more then 100 the best dolphin photographs and more than 100 the most interesting facts about them.
The Book consists of 5 chapters:
1. “Genesis” tells about the hero of the book and its evolution – where, when and how it comes from.
2. “Dolphin Advanced” is a chapter about adaptation to life in water: how do dolphins dive and swim; how do they breathe, and a lot of other wonderful details;
3. “Love and Routine” is about its sexual behavior, features of breeding and growing cubs;
4. “Community & Communication” is a chapter about role of sound in the life of dolphins, their social behavior and hierarchy in the pod, about most important thing in the animals’ life – hunting.
5. “Theory of Mind” is dedicated to issues of dolphin’s mind and intelligence.
Marvelous Viktor’s picture of the Black sea bottlenose dolphin is on cover of Asian Diver Magazine issue 2 (137)/15. And a story about afalinas (local name for bottlenose dolphins originated from Greek) by Bogdana Vashchenko “A Glimpse of Hope: Tales From the Black Sea” inside!
Yay! My mini feature about Black sea bottlenose dolphins in National Geographic Russia (Dec 2014) telling about a dolphin with unusual fate.
As usually with photography by Viktor.
And yes – Black Sea Indigenous – is a title of the piece.
Dolphin. Myths and Reality – this is the theme of our lecture in National Geographic Russia headquarters, which had been held today. We were so happy to meet people, concerned on problems of our environment and interested in nature so deeply.
We only could wish to have such an audience for any our project! They listened attentively, asked a lot of questions.
Read more about the lecture here.