TELUK BAHANG, 4 August 2014 - Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) hopes to produce more world-class researchers in marine mammal studies to help countries that are lacking experts in this field.

Since 1990, Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, was said to have the least number of expert researchers in this field resulting in many marine mammals such as whales, dugongs, and dolphins becoming endangered or extinct.

USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), Prof. Dato' Dr. Muhamad Jantan, said that young biologists lacked exposure to the knowledge of marine mammal studies, and for this reason USM conducts a variety of courses and workshops with that purpose.

"This time USM has successfully gathered young researchers and postgraduate students from Southeast Asia to share their expertise and conduct research together in the Penang waters," he said.

"This is a good start for USM to produce world-class marine mammals researchers, in tandem with the USM mission in pioneering intensive research globally," said Muhamad, who represented the Vice-Chancellor in officiating the international workshop on 'Capacity Building in Conducting Cetacean Abundance Surveys in South East Asia' organised by the Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (CEMACS) USM, at the Penang National Park yesterday.

Also at the event were CEMACS Director, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Shahrul Anuar Mohd Sah; the Deputy Directors and workshop participants from the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, India and Malaysia.

Muhamad added that through this workshop, theoretical and practical aspects were introduced thereby enabling the young researchers to start a research project on the marine mammals and to meet the objectives of research development in Southeast Asia in the area involved.

"Furthermore, we have invited distinguished international experts to lead the training in this workshop - Dr. William Perrin (United States), Dr. Louella Dolar (Philippines) and our local expert, Dr. Leela Rajamani (USM) - who have over 20 years of research experience in biology and ecology of marine mammals," he said.

At the same event, Dr. Shahrul said that the research done does not focus on the knowledge for researchers alone, but beseech researchers to figure out the best way to share the expertise with the public.

He added, “I believe we are all aware that human activities due to greed are causing massive destructions to the ecosystems which lead to the extinction of these animals.”

"I hope workshops such as this are able to meet the needs of the dissemination of knowledge to the community so that we can all protect the marine mammals together," he said.

He added that since the research started in 2011 at USM, four species of dolphins have been found in Penang namely the Irrawaddy, Indo-Pacific Humpback, and Finless Porpoise.

This eight-day workshop was conducted by three experts, delivering comprehensive training which include the analysis of data on every aspect of marine mammals in the Penang waters. - Translation: Siti Faizah Abd Halim​/Text: Mohd Azrul Mohd Azhar/Photo: Mohamad Danial Shahri