Yoonjeong Yang’ 24
Dr. Lungi Bundone, an expert on Mediterranean monk seal conservation, was a guest speaker for the 2nd annual Gray Colloquium, which was held on December 2. In his Gray Colloquium presentation, titled “Mediterranean Monk Seal Conservation and Monitoring,” Dr. Bundone discussed the obstacles that his Archipelagos team encountered while gathering and analyzing data. In order to monitor and conserve the Mediterranean monk seal, the team developed the first systemic photo identification catalog in Greece. Dr. Bundone’s emphasis on the intersection between science, sustainability, and art has brought new insights to the Gray Colloquium theme of 2021-2022: “Democracy in the 21st Century”.
Dr. Bundone was born in Sardinia, Italy and later moved to Venice, where he earned a Ph.D. in environmental science from the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice. Dr. Bundone is passionate about interacting with and educating the public about science, and he has organized workshops at international conferences over the past seven years. Bundone’s dissertation focused on an evaluation and conservation plan for the critically endangered monk seals in the central Mediterranean. To further his work with the monk seals, Dr. Bundone, who is affiliated with a university as a consultant and anchor, is creating a digital catalog of each individual seal found at various sites, including coastal Albania and the islands around Kefalonia, Greece. He is the founder and president of Archipelagos – ambiente e sviluppo, Italia, an organization dedicated to preserving coastal habitats and partnering with different organizations to achieve a sustainable future.
Dr. Bundone spoke to those in attendance at the Putnam Family Arts Center's Class of '45 Hall about how his Archipelagos team created a digital catalog of photographs to identify monk seals by deploying cameras along the coasts of Italy, Albania, and the Greek islands in the Ionian seas. In order to more effectively cover as much of the region as possible, the team installed 15 different marine caves, each equipped with infrared cameras, at various locations in the Central Ionian Sea where Mediterranean monk seals rest and give birth. He noted that the team has taken great care not to interact with or disturb the monk seals and that the flasks of the cameras were not visible to the naked eye. Since 2018, the Archipelagos team has captured about 300,000 photographs with the cameras. Additionally, during his presentation, Dr. Bundone even taught St. Markers how to identify the Mediterranean monk seals based on their size and proportions, scars, and the coloring of their backs and bellies. When he presented several images captured by the cave cameras, the students did their best to guess the age and sex of the seals.
In fact, Dr. Bundone has been collaborating with students from Barbara Putnam’s studio classes for over three years. With the help of Dr. Bundone, the students have conducted extensive research and have participated in insightful discussions about the threats to the Mediterranean monk seal’s survival and current conservation efforts, eventually incorporating their research on monk seals into paintings that Ms. Barbara Putnam presented at the World Marine Mammal Conference in Barcelona, Spain. Their impressive artwork, along with educational posters like “Mediterranean Monk Seal Habitat Use in the Central Ionian, Greece,” is on display in Taft.
The goal of this collaboration has been to fuse science and art in order to communicate critical messages about endangered marine animals to the public. By highlighting the intersection between science and art, this project is pertinent to the theme of “Democracy in the 21st Century.” Democracy depends on science for effectively addressing public problems; art serves as a vehicle to convey diverse perspectives to the audience, fostering the empathy required for democracy. In the case of this project, St. Mark’s students have conducted scientific research and created paintings to address the issue of critically endangered marine mammals, and consequently, their exhibited works have allowed the St. Mark’s community to gain awareness and empathy for the subject.
Dr. Bundone’s insightful presentation was well-received by the St. Mark’s audience. This year’s Gray Colloquium was successful, thanks to the efforts of the hard-working staff and Ms. Sarah McCann, who has worked as a Gray Colloquium Coordinator. The next presentation in the Gray Colloquium will take place on Thursday, January 27th, in the Putnam Family Arts Center’s Class of 1945 hall. The visiting speaker will be Shayla Lawson, an American poet and writer at Amherst College.
You can read more about the upcoming Gray Colloquium speakers here: https://www.stmarksschool.org/academics/signature-programming/gray-colloquium/gray-colloquium-details