Konnichiwa! Thanks for joining me on my dolphin journey.

I’m Leanne, a PhD student at Mie University in Japan.  

 

Originally from the UK, my love for whales and dolphins began in high school and by university had turned into such a full blown obsession that I had to pursue it as a profession. However, I felt my degree in English Literature would hold me back so after graduation I began volunteering for Sea Watch Foundation, a fantastic British non-profit organisation. I was then able to join as a research intern for two fantastic months of studying bottlenose dolphins in Cardigan Bay, Wales.  

 

In 2016 I arrived in Japan to teach English but was eager for more dolphin opportunities. After contacting every marine-related person in Japan that I could, I began as a voluntary research assistant at Kindai University (Osaka). Here I assisted Dr. Mai Sakai with her social behaviour study on the Indo-Pacific Bottlenose dolphins that inhabit Mikura Island. I was welcomed into the lab, even joining finless porpoise surveys in Osaka bay and field trips in tropical Japan and Northern Japan. It was this last field trip in particular that changed my path when I caught my first glimpse of Pacific white-sided dolphins. I fell in love with their striking black, white and grey beauty and curious, acrobatic nature, and have been researching them ever since. Here our team Mutsu Bay Dolphin Research was started and continues to progress! 

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After writing my first paper on this fascinating species I realised I needed more skills to push me further towards my dolphin dreams and so decided to go back to the UK to get my master’s degree, raising tuition fees through a GoFundMe campaign. My year at Bangor University was intense but fantastic, surrounded by amazing professors and wonderful classmates. My master's thesis focused on the Risso's dolphins around the Isle of Man, in collaboration with Manx Whale and Dolphin Watch and the Isle of Man Department of Environment, Food & Agriculture. I graduated with distinction in Marine Biology, winning the Jeremy Jones prize for ‘the highest scoring Post Graduate student in Biological Sciences’. 

 

During the end of my master’s I applied for a scholarship to do my PhD back in Japan and continue my Pacific white-sided dolphin research. After a long application process, a gruelling interview and a Japanese test in London, I was awarded the MEXT Japanese government scholarship and came back to my second home, Osaka, in 2024.  

Being on a boat is my happy place and I have had many amazing experiences at sea: from watching a large pod of Pacific-white-sided dolphins cooperatively hunt a shoal of sardines whilst listening to their communicative chatter on a hydrophone, to witnessing unique behaviours such as an infanticide attempt!

 

On this blog I hope to keep you updated with my PhD progress and the dolphins of Mutsu Bay. Thanks for following along and taking an interest in this understudied species.

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