Remembering Mel Cosentino.
Mel (Andrea) Cosentino PhD passed away on
July 29th, 2025, at the Søholm Hospice, Aarhus in Denmark after a complicated
battle with leukemia.
A few weeks before Mel died, but at a point
that she knew her death was imminent, she asked me to write a ‘cheeky eulogy' about her when she was gone. So here I try to honour her request. In the
interim, I also provided some text to the IWC so that it could issue one of its
sad 'in memorium' notices for her. I draw here on that notice and also on
the very lovely missive that her friends at Aarhus University published on
their website. Various of our mutual friends have also helped with these words
and the document remains open for improvement.
Mel Cosentino’s life was a truly remarkable one! She was
born and grew up in Argentina and whilst her origins might be described as
modest, her intense interest in nature was nurtured in Patagonia, including her
life-long love for orcas, a species that she first met there. I am told that
she took her chosen name (she was originally named Andrea) because there was a
famous Patagonian orca known as Mel.
I first got
to know her in the fringes of the IWC Scientific Committee (SC) and at the annual
conferences of the European Cetacean Society and in both these places she was
always an enthusiastic contributor. I don’t recall precisely when we first met
but in those now distant days, she was a brave mixture of shyness and enthusiasm,
and she made friends easily and we shared a little social circle (you know who
you are).
Curiously, Mel attended SC meetings as a member of
the Luxembourg delegation. To understand how this came about, we need to go
back to when she and her then husband left Argentina at a time when it was
suffering a severe economic blight. The couple first went to Ireland, and
worked as farm hands there, moving on to Spain. Here Mel restarted her undergraduate
studies at the University of Malaga and further polished her language skills.
She also went to help with the Tarifa orca project in the Gibraltar Straits.
Here she met Pierre Gallego and it was later Pierre – as the lead for
Luxembourg in the SC - who brought her into its meetings.
Whilst not attending such meetings, Mel roamed all
over the world acting as a researcher/naturalist on many expeditions and
building a big international gang of friends. Her travels included Norway where
she was again able to see her beloved orcas/
Mel attended SC meetings in the period from 2012 until 2022 and made many contributions, submitting papers across a diverse
range of topics, including co-authoring papers concerning bycatch, the effects
of whale watching, aquatic wild meat and noise pollution.
Her determination to work in the cetacean field saw
her complete a master’s degree in Aberdeen, then she studied for a PhD at the
University of Strathclyde in Scotland. Somewhere along the way she collaborated
on a really remarkable paper that provides an account of a solitary common
dolphin that lived in the Firth of Clyde for a number of years and the harbour
porpoises that it interacted with there. The paper is available HERE.
During
the difficult years of the COVID lock-downs, she joined various virtual
meetings and knitted wonderful little dragons that she sent to friends to bring
some cheer. I don’t know why she chose dragons but they came in many bright colours.
After she received her PhD in 2020, she moved to
Denmark and the Department of Ecoscience at Aarhus University. Here she really
found her happy place with her partner, Henrik. At the time of her death, she
was working as a Postdoc on a project about acoustic communication in porpoises.
It their lovely tribute to her published on the University website, her
colleagues at Aarhus commented that ‘among her most significant scientific
contributions is the best software ever developed for identification and
classification of porpoise sounds in underwater recordings and impressive
syntheses and results based on data collected by herself and countless other
volunteers on whale safari boats and other platforms from many parts of the
world, including Andenes, Norway.’
In the months that preceded her death the battle
with the disease was a terrible roller-coaster. In fact, not so long ago she
was in recovery and looking forward to returning to a normal life. But the
disease then resurged, and she was then told she only had weeks to live. I
cannot imagine how difficult this must have been for her and for Henrik. Right
up until the end she was still messaging her friends and thinking of them and
their needs. She asked us all to celebrate her in our own way.
Those of us who had the privilege of knowing her
across the decades, saw her grow from an enthusiastic and determined student
into an increasingly significant and passionate scientific contributor across a
range of topics focused on cetacean conservation. A few days after her death a
new paper on orcas and sperm whales (another story of unusual interactions) with
her as the first author was published. You can find it HERE and all her other published contributions remain
as a shining testimony to the breadth and quality of her work on her
researchgate pages.
Mel was a very warm and kind person, generous to her friends, blessed with a big
smile and an infectious laugh. She held strong views, especially on matters where
she saw injustice, and was a champion for younger researchers and women in science.
Here are comments from a couple of her close friends:
Rob Lott who has known her since her Tarifa days
noted this “Mel was a friend to everyone and had a
remarkable way of making you feel at ease with her quiet and warm personality.
I remember her steely ambition too, after recently arriving in Europe and
taking every opportunity to practice her English.”
Pierre Gallego, also a friend of more than 20 years adds this
‘She is the best example I know that if you work hard enough, you can achieve
any goal you set.’
While we can all agree that she was taken from us
too soon, she achieved much, and her remarkable life story shows that hard work
in pursuit of your heart’s desire can pay off.
The whales, dolphins and porpoises have lost a
great ally but, if they could, they would surely thank her being one of their great
champions.
Heartfelt condolences to all her friends and
family, including Henrik, her partner,
This is your ‘cheeky eulogy’ Mel, I hope it is something
close to what you wanted.
 |
| Mel (second left) and some other IWC SC colleagues a few years ago. |
Corrections, additions and comments can be sent to
me and if you would like to add some words to this, please let me know. I have borrowed
a couple of pictures from her Facebook page here. I don’t know who took them
but if this causes any concerns, please let me know.
