My main mission during this internship was to work on photo-identification and the organization of the photo and data catalog, focusing primarily on common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). I also worked with archive photographs of pilot whales (Globicephala).

The goal of this work was to identify individual dolphins by examining distinctive features on the left side of their dorsal fin—such as scars, notches, and other recognizable marks. By comparing these markings across hundreds of photos, I contributed to the long-term monitoring of local dolphin populations: determining whether the same individuals reappeared from one year to another, how frequently they were observed, and how they moved through the area.

To support this work, I organized all the material into a large classification spreadsheet that grouped photos based on the location of key marks on the dorsal fin. This structure made it easier to sort, compare, and match individuals within a very large dataset collected from numerous weekly surveys.