Counting Dolphins in Kizimkazi: A Conversation with Ahmada Hashir
Ahmada Hashir is our Marine Manager in Zanzibar. A marine and environmental conservation professional based on the island, he first joined African Impact as a Marine Coordinator in 2022 and returned as Marine Manager in 2026, with research experience in between. Day to day, he oversees our marine projects and turns field observations into information that helps us understand changes in the marine environment. Our marine conservation project has monitored dolphins around Kizimkazi since 2007, working from our base in Jambiani.
In this conversation, Ahmada explains where the research happens, what we record on every outing, and what the data has shown about how dolphins respond to growing tourism pressure.
Images by Jens Söderlund and Anna Lusty
What makes Jambiani specifically a valuable location for marine research, and what can researchers and students study here that they might not get access to elsewhere?
Jambiani is primarily our base location, rather than the main research site. Most of our marine research and field activities take place in Kizimkazi, where access to dolphins is relatively easy and where dolphin watching tourism is a major part of the local marine economy. Kizimkazi is particularly valuable because it allows researchers and students to study marine wildlife in a setting where conservation, tourism, fisheries, and local communities directly interact.
Kizimkazi is one of Zanzibar’s most important areas for dolphin research and dolphin-watching tourism. Resident dolphin populations occur in the coastal waters around the area, making them relatively accessible for regular boat-based observations. This accessibility allows researchers and students to collect repeated observations on dolphin abundance, group composition, behavior, movement, and interactions with boats and tourists.
What exactly do you track during a dolphin monitoring outing, and what has that data told us over the years about the population and how it’s responding to tourism pressure?
During dolphin monitoring, we track several things, including the dolphins’ surface time, their behavior, the number of dolphins in each pod, including adults and calves, and the location where they were spotted. We also record the number of boats and tourists around each dolphin pod.
Over the years, the data has shown a gradual decrease in dolphin numbers, and dolphins have been spotted a little further away from Kizimkazi and the tourism access points compared to previous locations. We have also observed that the dolphins’ surface time decreased significantly as the number of boats and tourists per dolphin pod increased. This helped us understand how increasing tourism pressure can affect dolphin behavior and provided useful information for promoting more responsible dolphin tourism and conservation.
How responsible tourism helps both dolphins and local livelihoods
How do you measure population health specifically, and what are the limits of what this kind of long-term dataset can tell us?
We look at several indicators rather than just one. During monitoring, we record dolphin numbers, including the ratio of adults to calves, and their behavior. We also conduct two types of monitoring. The first is Dolphin Tourism Monitoring (DTM), which is done in the morning when tourism activities are taking place. The second is Dolphin Behavior Monitoring (DBM), which is usually done in the afternoon when there is no tourism activity. This helps us compare the dolphins’ behavior and surface time when they are exposed to tourism pressure with their behavior when there are no boats around.
By looking at these indicators over a long time, we can identify changes in the population and understand how dolphin behavior responds to tourism pressure.
Join Us in Zanzibar
If you’d like to be part of this work, there are several ways to join us in Zanzibar:
- Individuals: join our Dolphin & Marine Conservation Volunteer Project
- Universities: bring your students on a faculty-led or study abroad marine conservation program
- Schools: explore our High School and IB CAS programs
