Our
Center
Visitor & Education
Come and check out the Skeletons of Ponta; a collection of marine mammals and megafauna that have stranded over the years in the area - we have reconstructed turtles, a baby bottlenose dolphin, a seal and some gigantic humpback whale bones!
While there, don't forget to book your educational dolphin encountour to lean more about our finned friends and visit them in person!
DOLPHINS OF PONTA
Come and learn about the resident Dolphins of Ponta.
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Since 1997 DERC has collected & maintained a data set on marine megafauna seen whilst at sea while undertaking encountours & dedicated research launches.
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Our main focus however is the resident population of Indo-Pacific bottlenose & humpback dolphins who live in the coastal shallows of the Maputo National Park.
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ADOPT #DOLPHINSOFPONTA and support our research efforts in the Ponta do Ouro Partial Marine Reserve. Adoptions are made available through our partners at the Society for Dolphin Conservation in Germany. Some of our most loved dolfriends like old man Rob and Beautiful Bo and gregarious Gilly and their family lines can be adopted!
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HISTORY
Mozambiques original Dolphin Center was established in Ponta do Ouro in 2000 by Angie Gullan as a space to faciliate wild dolphins encountours which doubled up as an ecucational area and dispaly space for specimans of marine megafauna collected and preserved in the area.
Our Center has had a few homes over the past two decades and although the oceans have been rough at times we have managed to survive both the devastating fire of 2010 and the 2020/21 pandemic closures.
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In the December of 2019, ±2 months before the pandemic stuck, we had just invested both energy and funds into renovating and re-opening our Dolphin Center back in the main campsite, across the road from the original beachfront chalets were we used to run our dolphin encountours between 1995 - 1997, before establishing the BeachCamp until the fire..
SKELETONS OF PONTA
Specimen collection began on the 25 November 1997 when the first dolphin body was retrieved from the beach in Ponta do Ouro.
To date 44 stranded marine megafauna have been recorded. This includes majority dolphins followed by whales, turtles, whale sharks and even a seal.
Some of these skeletons are on display at the Education Center and over time more will be added together with information boards detailing species and occurrence etc in the ara.
Retrieving animals off the beach requires special permission. Our Center has been working with both the Reserve and the Natural History Museum in Maputo and has a MOU for this purpose.
