Ecological research of finless porpoise inhabiting the Seto Inland Sea

Although the Seto Inland Sea is a shallow semi-closed sea, the finless porpoise, Neophocaena phocaenoides, which is smallest dolphin in the world, distributed there. Because the dolphins do not have a dorsal fin and are not noticeable, their ecology is hard to investigate. Therefore, we set two acoustic data logger under the water near the Maejima Island, Okayama, recorded the dolphin’s voice, and tried to predict ecology by their data. Also, with recording the dolphin’s voice, we plan to record weather observations with loggers and to clarify the relationship between the weather and the appearance or behavior of dolphins. We integrate these data to clarify the behavior of dolphins and to develop monitoring methods.