Alongside her volunteer role as Regional Coordinator with the Sea Watch Foundation, Vanessa has been lead volunteer for Somerset Wildlife Trust’s Sea watch surveys. Since 2018 Vanessa has been helping organise and run these monthly surveys along the Somerset coast, alongside providing training sessions throughout the year. This has led to Somerset Wildlife Trust recruiting over 100 volunteers and building up a database of both timed survey data and casual sightings of marine mammals. This data has provided a clearer understanding of the local resident harbour porpoise, Phocoena phocoena, population is being achieved.
Geckoella are proud to be supporting Vanessa in investigating how photo identification can be used for porpoise and seals to further improve our knowledge of their abundance and distribution.
Link to the video: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-wildlife-trusts_marsh-award-2022-activity-6958370257803608064-u3Li?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web
Link to the blog post: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/guest/marsh-charitable-trust-marine-22
Hurlstone Point Sea Watch
