the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel is home to bottlenose dolphins

In Brittany, an association takes its members to discover local marine animals. They are looking for the bottlenose dolphin, an animal that measures four meters for 400 kilos. After several hours of searching, they do not see a dolphin fin, but some clues. A fish remains left on the surface of the water indicates that a dolphin passed by. On average, less than one in two outings results in an encounter with the animal.

“The area is very large, the animals move a lot, they cover more than a hundred kilometers a day”, explains Gaël Gautier, president of the association “Al Lark”. Not seeing the animals all the time also prevents big boats from coming. The bay is home to 450 bottlenose dolphins, the largest colony in Europe. The association’s scientists take advantage of each encounter to photograph the mammals and try to recognize them by their fins. More than 200,000 photos of dolphins have been taken in 18 years.