Return to Madeira Part One -ECS Reception and student awards

So its back to the lovely island of Madeira for the 30th conference of the European Cetacean Society (ECS)!

Here are a (very) few images of the island and some of the conference, including the student awards.

Princess Sissi outside the
Pestana Casinao Hotel which hosted ECS 2016

Pestana

Huge Norwegian cruise liner in the main port of Funshal

The small cabins selling whale and dolphin tours and fishing trips.
The famous Santa Maria de Colomba is on the other side of the dock - see the red and white sials.

Shrine to a famous footballer - Christian Ronado who is from Madeira

ECS 30 Reception at Madeira whale museum - complete with life-sized whale models, a yellow submarine and ear-splittingly loud music.

Fin whale at reception.

Elizabeth Hogan of WAP gets close to a colorful pilot whale in the museum

Opening Session of the 30th ECS

View from the back of the great congress hall

The redoubtable Luis Freitas - organizer of ECS 30

Robin Baird a keynote speaker at ECS 30 talking about his work in Haiwaii

Mark on climate change.

Hal Whitehead masters the remote

Simon Berrow

An invitation for the next ECS to come to Denmark

Sarah Dolman of WDC convinces the AGM to pass a resolution on bycatch

The student awards - Anja Reckendorf wins a prize.

And the award winners were:

Best oral Presentation; Ruth Esteban; “Conservation of killer whales in the Strait of Gibraltar requires Ecosystem-based Bluefin tuna fishery management”

Best Short-talk; Matteo Baini; “Cytochrome P450 1A1 and 2B protein expression as biomarker for the first assessment of the ecotoxicological status of Cuvier’s beaked (Ziphius cavirostris) in the NW Mediterranean Sea"

Best Poster (post-graduate); Anja Reckendorf (above); “First record of the nasal mite Halarachne halichoteri in a grey seal from the German Wadden Sea"

Best Poster (undergraduate); Mafalda de Freitas; Echolocation parameters of Australian humpback dolphins (Sousa sahulensis) and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) in the wild: investigating biosonar parameter shaping pressures. 

They win free admittance to net year's conference which will be in Denmark.