| TMRC is a modest research and conservation outfit conceived to help promote research and conservation of marine mammals and their habitats in the tropical Pacific, particularly in Southeast Asia. It specializes in abundance surveys, monitoring marine mammal by-catch, studying marine trophic ecology and grass-root level conservation education. It also has expertise in fish biology and fishery-related problems, aquaculture, plankton studies and rapid resource assessments. Although it is only one year old, the biologist has been in marine science research for over 20 years and has learned research techniques and methods from the Philippines, Australia and the U.S.. TMRC will implement the project entitled “Marine mammal survey and training”. The project aims to characterize the marine mammal fauna and of the three Marine Biodiversity Conservation Corridors (MBCC), Verde Passage, Balabac Corridor and the Cagayan Ridge in terms of species composition, distribution, abundance of the more common species, and movement of selected species; and identify human activities that threaten their continued existence. A boat-based line transect method will be carried out to identify the marine mammal species present in the area and determine cetacean abundance. Abundance estimates will be made using the program DISTANCE v. 5. Movements of selected species e.g. pilot whales will be carried out using photo-identification using natural marks. Distribution and abundance will be correlated with physico-chemical parameters such as water depth, sea surface temperature, salinity, turbidity and distance from shore, which will also be collected during the line transect survey, using the generalized additive models (GAMs). Human activities that impact marine mammal populations will be identified by interviewing local villagers especially the fishermen, fish vendors, government officials and “bantay dagat”. CONTACT INFORMATION
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