Dolphin sighting off Punta Mesco in the Cinque Terre. Six bottlenose dolphins, usually curious and joyful, came up to a boat with two marine biologists on board, Lorenzo Bramanti and Giampietro Sara, swimming with them for a good part of their journey.

The sighting took place a couple of days ago inside the Santuario dei Cetaci, also due to the reduced number of boats which has allowed a number of animal species to travel with less stress, to areas that are usually full of human traffic.

At the time of the encounter, the two divers were working on positioning hydrophones to measure underwater sounds as part of a project carried out in partnership with Parco delle Cinque Terre, the CNRS and Istituto Chorus.

The objective of the initiative is to monitor the acoustic noise caused in the marine environment by human activities, in addition to evaluating the health levels of the sea fans present in the park.

In this first phase defined as “phase zero” the job of the two biologists was to monitor the sea with an absence of anthropic disturbances. A job which was made much more pleasant by the company of six friendly and unexpected visitors!

Maria Cristina Sabatini