Dennis Brennecke is focusing on harbour porpoise bycatch in the Baltic Sea trying to understand why numerous harbour porpoises are being bycaught. Thus, he is conducting retrospective analyses over 30 years of post-mortem bycatch data and combine the results with environmental data to investigate whether certain weather conditions play an important role in the probability of being bycaught. Additionally, he is using drones to observe the behaviour of porpoises around fishing nets and how acoustic pingers affect the fine‐scale behaviour of porpoises. It is important to acquire more insight into porpoise behaviour to better understand causes of bycatch, and thus to be able to better evaluate and prevent human threats by advancement of existing devices and the development of new tools to protect this species.
