11RT

The 11th Reunion of Specalists of Aquatic Mammals of South America (11RT), and the 5th Congress of the Latin American Aquatic Mammal Specialists (5th SOLAMAC) met in Quito, Ecuador between 12 and 17 September. CSI was pleased to have given small grants to 34 scientists who attended this meeting, as well as the meeting itself, the continent's equivalent to the Society for Marine Mammalogy and European Cetacean Society conferences. We are especially pleased to honor two of them: Daniza Molina-Schiller of Chile, who won the coveted Robin Best Award for Best Oral Presentation, "Oceanographic conditions associated with the distribution of Phocoena spinipinnis", and Marcos César de Oliveira Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, who won the even more coveted Robin Best Award for Best Overall Presentation. Both awards included cash, books, and considerable prestige.

Marcos, whom we have known and admired for over a decade, was particularly busy presenting two studies, one on the social organization of marine tuxuci dolphins and another relating the species' group size with environmental factors. He returned from Quito to meet his next Earthwatch team, and immediately began the next phase of his research on the tiny dolphins of the Cananéia Estuary. Marcos has been one of Earthwatch's success stories. His current team, from Argentina, Britain, Russia, and the U.S. will learn about dolphins from a master, and in a magnificent location. We wish Marcos success particularly as he finishes his Ph.D. in early October, knowing we are fortunate to know him, as well as so many other gifted young scientists throughout Latin America.

For a sample of the people we were pleased to help at the 11RT, from top left to right: Cecilia Passadore (Uruguay), Verónica Iriarte (Uruguay), Paula Costa (Uruguay), Mariana Degrati (Argentina), Griselda Garaffo (Argentina), Santiago Burneo (Ecuador, organizer for 11RT), Paula Franco (Uruguay), Lida Pimper (Argentina) and Mónica Torres (Argentina).

Did you see the list of people in January's Whales Alive!, to whom CSI has given support over two decades? CSI wishes to apologize to Paulo Andrè Flores, of Florianópolis, Brazil, for unintentionally omitting his name from the list. How did we do that? Paulo's been a consistent friend since the 80's, and we look forward to his future career. Paulo works with the International Wildlife Coalition/Brasil and has always been a strong supporter of conservation science in Brazil. Recently he advised against using certain research methods to study tuxuci dolphins, because he knew the dolphins would be greatly stressed by the procedures.