21st Century Marine Pollutants

The bottlenose dolphins of Croatia’s Cres-Lošinj archipelago are running out of quiet. In the Adriatic, a shallow, semi-enclosed sea warming faster than nearly anywhere else in the Mediterranean, rising boat traffic, underwater noise, and plastic pollution are converging on one of Europe’s last accessible cetacean populations. From a field station on Lošinj Island, you’ll spend four weeks working alongside researchers from the Blue World Institute, conducting boat-based surveys of dolphins and sea turtles in waters where these species urgently need science on their side.

• Deploy hydrophones from research vessels to record dolphin vocalizations, run photo-identification surveys to build individual profiles, and link acoustic data to observed behavior, contributing to long-term population monitoring in the Adriatic.
• Assess sea turtle health at a rescue center, investigate suspected plastic ingestion cases, and conduct necropsy analysis, connecting what happens to individual animals to population-level conservation decisions.
• Sample microplastics with manta nets and underwater drones, survey shoreline litter, and snorkel through Posidonia seagrass meadows to document contamination across an entire marine ecosystem.
• Analyze your field data using EU monitoring protocols, then design a public awareness campaign grounded in the evidence you collected, building skills that bridge research and real-world marine policy.