It is with great sadness we report the untimely passing of Lorenzo de Bonis.
Lorenzo first reached out to the IWDG in 2020 when he completed his placement as part of his IMBRSea masters project. It was online but Lorenzo and fellow student Michiel De Boeck contributed a lot despite the distance between us all. Both Michiel and Lorenzo prepared short podcasts on our Shannon Dolphin research:
Following one of Lorenzo’s stories of encountering a Gray whale in the Mediterranean during one of the many yacht-based surveys he carried out, he wrote a lovely piece for our summer 2021 edition of the IWDG magazine Flukes (Issue 5).
Lorenzo travelled to ATU Galway to complete his third semester and stayed to carry out his MSc project on the genetics of bottlenose dolphins. This followed an increase in bottlenose dolphin strandings, especially in and around the Shannon Estuary. Lorenzo’s task was to assign each stranding to one of the three genetically discrete populations (Shannon, Coastal and Offshore) first identified by Luca Mirimin during his PhD at UCC.
Lorenzo joined Luca’s lab in ATU and as a field person, looked quite uncomfortable but he was very keen to improve his lab experience and discipline and soon embraced this new environment. His work with ATU and the IWDG on updating our knowledge on bottlenose dolphin genetics was very useful but his exploration of the genetics of some of the solitary dolphins in Ireland was truly remarkable. He showed that four of the five dolphins sampled were all offshore genotypes with one a Shannon-Offshore hybrid. This work is ready to be submitted for publication and we will ensure it is published in his memory. 
Following this work he was offered a PhD at UCC on the eWhale project (eWhale). He was now very comfortable in the lab and became a driver and mentor to many colleagues in the School of BEES in UCC.
Lorenzo loved all outdoor activities including sailing and climbing, and it was the latter that led to his untimely passing when he fell while climbing off Baltimore, Co Cork. Thank you to the lifeboat and local boat people who recovered his body for his family to mourn and bury.
Our sincere condolences to his parents Concetta and Riccardo and his partner Signe. Our hearts go out to you all.
Lorenzo will live on in our hearts and we will ensure his work will be published and leave some legacy.
Simon Berrow
https://rip.ie/death-notice/lorenzo-de-bonis-cork-cork-city-604798