The Cinque Terre and the Ligurian Sea Cetacean Sanctuary
The rich waters of the Cinque Terre protected marine area, and of all the Ligurian Sea Cetacean Sanctuary - which was established in 1999 -, constitute a very important biological habitat, so abounding in nutritious elements that can be compared to the Atlantic Ocean.
This is due to a favourable system of sea currents that provides vertical water movements lifting the nutrients from the seafloor, and to the action of winter winds that spreads the nutrients all over the water column.
For all these reasons every summer almost 2000 fin whales and common minke whales, and thousands of other marine mammals - dolphins, Cuvier's beaked whales, sperm whales -, gather in the Ligurian-Provencal basin, which includes Cinque Terre, seeking food before winter.
The Cetacean Sanctuary
The Sanctuary was established in 1999, thanks to the collaboration between France (Cote d'Azur and Corsica), the Principality of Monaco, and Italy (Liguria, Tuscany and northern Sardinia).
The agreement was later ratified by the Italian government with the law no. 391/2001.
The Sanctuary is included in the list of the Barcelona Convention's Specially Protected Areas and is therefore recognised by all the Mediterranean countries.
These trans-boundary waters, extended for 100.000 square Kilometres, are characterised by some peculiar environmental conditions that permitted the creation of a food chain favourable for marine mammals.
The number of cetaceans in the Sanctuary is estimated to be around one thousand of fin whales, 30-40.000 of striped dolphins, common bottlenose dolphins and short-beaked common dolphins, plus several other species such as Risso's dolphins, sperm whales, Cuvier's beaked whales, long-finned pilot whales, and sometimes common minke whales, which find here good conditions for nutrition and reproduction.
Such a high number of marine mammals in the Ligurian Sea needs an appropriate safeguard of the habitat; this task is carried out by the protected areas overlooking this portion of Tyrrhenian Sea, including the Cinque Terre PMA, that will regulate the activities potentially detrimental for cetaceans, like navigation, fishing and tourism.
Marine mammals in the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean basin is the habitat of twenty one out of eighty species of cetaceans, such as fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus), common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba), the increasingly rare short-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), and the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus).
Only eight of these species are regularly observed in our seas; they are mostly resident and rather common, and their population can be spotted at every time of the year, proving that they live, feed and procreate in this area.
Whales and dolphins are rather common in the western part of the Mediterranean, and rarer in the eastern part and in the Black Sea.
The Mediterranean closed basin is, thus, a favourable environment for the marine mammals: they occupy high positions on the food chain, but they are nonetheless vulnerable to several threats, principally caused by human activities.
Risks and conservation
The future of cetaceans depends mostly on us.
In fact, a large number of species are at risk of extinction due to the increasingly invasive human activities.
The most threatened species are the ones with limited diffusion, tied to a peculiar environment, like the baiji dolphin and the Indus River Dolphin, or the species that have been decreasing due to inconsiderate large-scale hunting, such as the humpback whale in the north-east Atlantic Ocean.
Risk factors for marine mammals:
1. Fishing
2. Navigation
3. Pollution
These factors threaten all the species of cetaceans without distinction.
So the challenge for the future is to reverse the trend, and each one of us can play an important role: we must promote a radical change, which has now become necessary, in the way men approach the seas and resources management.
Deterioration of the environment
The exponential increase of tourism, excessive urbanisation, widespread use of petroleum derivates, and global change, represent a serious hazard for the survival of this sea, and can make its environment less suitable for the life of such delicate creatures as cetaceans are.
Urban effluents pollution can cause hypertrophication, as well as an excessive concentration of nutrients, such as phosphorus nitrogen derived from agriculture and detergents, can cause great increase of dangerous or toxic algae.
Chemical pollution
It is tied to industrial development, and is one of the main menaces for marine mammals.
The density of tar disperse in water referred to the Mediterranean Sea, 38 mg per cubic metre, is the highest in the world.
Some toxic chemicals produced by human activities, such as mercury, PCBs, DDT, tend to concentrate in the food chain, becoming hazardous for the species at the highest trophic levels, as humans and marine mammals.
Bycatch
Both men and cetaceans feed on other marine species, and can sometimes compete for food, causing negative effects on fishing economy and on other animals.
Cetacean species as the common bottlenose dolphin, the striped dolphin, the Risso's dolphin, the sperm whale, and the short-beaked common dolphin might occasionally get close and interact with fishing devices, snatch fish from the nets or tear them, and sometimes get trapped.
The most dangerous fishing method is the use of pelagic driftnets, known in Italy as "spadare", which have been banned by the European Commission in 2002, and by all the Mediterranean countries in 2005, but are still illegally used.
Other threats can come from gillnetting, and occasionally from trawling, seine fishing, fishing lines, and longline fishing.
Around 300.000 marine mammals are estimated to die every year in the fishing nets all over the world: 1000 specimens a day.
Despite the EU ban, the italian Coast Guard confiscated over 800 km of pelagic driftnets in 2005, and another 600 km in 2006.
Noise pollution
Generated by the numerous boats and ships, as well as by coastal and military activities, noise pollution interferes with cetacean’s biosonar, and with their delicate hearing, causing stress or disturbance to nutrition and reproduction.
Collisions with boats
The most dangerous season is summer, when, in addition to the increased number of boats, there is a confluence of marine mammals, attracted by the abundance of plankton, that risk to collide with watercrafts.
The death rate of collisions in the Mediterranean is between 16% and 19,9%, but the number is estimated to be increasing.
The Mediterranean basin suffers also an intense stress due to the enormous concentration of freight shipping, a 30% of the world's total, and use of petroleum derivates, an increasing 25%.
The rich waters of the Cinque Terre protected marine area, and of all the Ligurian Sea Cetacean Sanctuary - which was established in 1999 -, constitute a very important biological habitat, so abounding in nutritious elements that can be compared to the Atlantic Ocean.
This is due to a favourable system of sea currents that provides vertical water movements lifting the nutrients from the seafloor, and to the action of winter winds that spreads the nutrients all over the water column.
For all these reasons every summer almost 2000 fin whales and common minke whales, and thousands of other marine mammals - dolphins, Cuvier's beaked whales, sperm whales -, gather in the Ligurian-Provencal basin, which includes Cinque Terre, seeking food before winter.
The Cetacean Sanctuary
The Sanctuary was established in 1999, thanks to the collaboration between France (Cote d'Azur and Corsica), the Principality of Monaco, and Italy (Liguria, Tuscany and northern Sardinia).
The agreement was later ratified by the Italian government with the law no. 391/2001.
The Sanctuary is included in the list of the Barcelona Convention's Specially Protected Areas and is therefore recognised by all the Mediterranean countries.
These trans-boundary waters, extended for 100.000 square Kilometres, are characterised by some peculiar environmental conditions that permitted the creation of a food chain favourable for marine mammals.
The number of cetaceans in the Sanctuary is estimated to be around one thousand of fin whales, 30-40.000 of striped dolphins, common bottlenose dolphins and short-beaked common dolphins, plus several other species such as Risso's dolphins, sperm whales, Cuvier's beaked whales, long-finned pilot whales, and sometimes common minke whales, which find here good conditions for nutrition and reproduction.
Such a high number of marine mammals in the Ligurian Sea needs an appropriate safeguard of the habitat; this task is carried out by the protected areas overlooking this portion of Tyrrhenian Sea, including the Cinque Terre PMA, that will regulate the activities potentially detrimental for cetaceans, like navigation, fishing and tourism.
Marine mammals in the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean basin is the habitat of twenty one out of eighty species of cetaceans, such as fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus), common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba), the increasingly rare short-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), and the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus).
Only eight of these species are regularly observed in our seas; they are mostly resident and rather common, and their population can be spotted at every time of the year, proving that they live, feed and procreate in this area.
Whales and dolphins are rather common in the western part of the Mediterranean, and rarer in the eastern part and in the Black Sea.
The Mediterranean closed basin is, thus, a favourable environment for the marine mammals: they occupy high positions on the food chain, but they are nonetheless vulnerable to several threats, principally caused by human activities.
Risks and conservation
The future of cetaceans depends mostly on us.
In fact, a large number of species are at risk of extinction due to the increasingly invasive human activities.
The most threatened species are the ones with limited diffusion, tied to a peculiar environment, like the baiji dolphin and the Indus River Dolphin, or the species that have been decreasing due to inconsiderate large-scale hunting, such as the humpback whale in the north-east Atlantic Ocean.
Risk factors for marine mammals:
1. Fishing
2. Navigation
3. Pollution
These factors threaten all the species of cetaceans without distinction.
So the challenge for the future is to reverse the trend, and each one of us can play an important role: we must promote a radical change, which has now become necessary, in the way men approach the seas and resources management.
Deterioration of the environment
The exponential increase of tourism, excessive urbanisation, widespread use of petroleum derivates, and global change, represent a serious hazard for the survival of this sea, and can make its environment less suitable for the life of such delicate creatures as cetaceans are.
Urban effluents pollution can cause hypertrophication, as well as an excessive concentration of nutrients, such as phosphorus nitrogen derived from agriculture and detergents, can cause great increase of dangerous or toxic algae.
Chemical pollution
It is tied to industrial development, and is one of the main menaces for marine mammals.
The density of tar disperse in water referred to the Mediterranean Sea, 38 mg per cubic metre, is the highest in the world.
Some toxic chemicals produced by human activities, such as mercury, PCBs, DDT, tend to concentrate in the food chain, becoming hazardous for the species at the highest trophic levels, as humans and marine mammals.
Bycatch
Both men and cetaceans feed on other marine species, and can sometimes compete for food, causing negative effects on fishing economy and on other animals.
Cetacean species as the common bottlenose dolphin, the striped dolphin, the Risso's dolphin, the sperm whale, and the short-beaked common dolphin might occasionally get close and interact with fishing devices, snatch fish from the nets or tear them, and sometimes get trapped.
The most dangerous fishing method is the use of pelagic driftnets, known in Italy as "spadare", which have been banned by the European Commission in 2002, and by all the Mediterranean countries in 2005, but are still illegally used.
Other threats can come from gillnetting, and occasionally from trawling, seine fishing, fishing lines, and longline fishing.
Around 300.000 marine mammals are estimated to die every year in the fishing nets all over the world: 1000 specimens a day.
Despite the EU ban, the italian Coast Guard confiscated over 800 km of pelagic driftnets in 2005, and another 600 km in 2006.
Noise pollution
Generated by the numerous boats and ships, as well as by coastal and military activities, noise pollution interferes with cetacean’s biosonar, and with their delicate hearing, causing stress or disturbance to nutrition and reproduction.
Collisions with boats
The most dangerous season is summer, when, in addition to the increased number of boats, there is a confluence of marine mammals, attracted by the abundance of plankton, that risk to collide with watercrafts.
The death rate of collisions in the Mediterranean is between 16% and 19,9%, but the number is estimated to be increasing.
The Mediterranean basin suffers also an intense stress due to the enormous concentration of freight shipping, a 30% of the world's total, and use of petroleum derivates, an increasing 25%.
Visit our YouTube page