Ph.D, Univeristy of California, Santa Cruise CRIOBE, Moorea, French Polynesia

Dr. Michael Poole is presently the Director of The Marine Mammal Research Program at the Island Research Center & Environmental Observatory (CRIOBE, a biological research station of the University of Perpignan, France) on Moorea, French Polynesia. He is a charter member of the Society for Marine Mammalogy and a member of the American Society of Mammalogists.

Over the past 15 years, much of Michael's research has been on spinner dolphins in French Polynesia. He has also studied humpback whales, rough-toothed dolphins, and other species at eight islands. Michael has provided reports on his research to the United Nations Cetacean Specialist Group of South Pacific Regional Environmental Program.

Dr. Poole's most important success came in May 2002 when French Polynesia's Government accepted his long-standing proposition and draft legislation to create a whale and dolphin sanctuary within all of the territory's Exclusive Economic Zone, an area half the size of the USA.