Ligurian Sea Cetacean Sanctuary
The Whale Sanctuary ( Italian: Santuario Cetaceans, French: Sanctuaire Pelagos ) is a marine protected area between Sardinia and the coast of the Italian regions of Liguria and Tuscany, as well as Monaco and the South of France Cote d' Azur. It is one of the Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance of the United Nations Environment Programme.
The protected area
The marine reserve was established in 1999 in international waters at the instigation of the three adjacent countries France, Italy and Monaco. Adjacent coastal areas are in France, the Côte d' Azur and Corsica, Italy in Liguria, Tuscany and the north of Sardinia, and the Principality of Monaco. The whale sanctuary extends parade - liguro - Provençal basin from the Cap d' Escampobariou ( near Toulon), Capo Falcone and Capo Ferro in Sardinia, to the river Chiarone in Tuscany. This section of coast described reached a total length of 2022 km.
The Whale Sanctuary has a water surface area of about 87,000 square kilometers and has such a high probability to spot a marine mammal that Whale watching has become a popular attraction.
Fauna
More than 8500 macroscopic animal species have been recorded in the reserve. To live between four and 18 percent of all marine life in this just 0.024 percent of the total sea comprehensive region.
The Mediterranean section that includes the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, has a significant concentration of whales, who find a particularly good food available there. The reserve offers twelve species of marine mammals, habitat, including the second largest creatures on earth, the fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus ), the sperm whale ( Physeter macrocephalus), the pilot whale ( Globicephala melas ), the vulgar dolphin ( Delphinus delphis ), the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus ), the strip dolphin ( Stenella coeruleoalba ), the Risso's dolphin ( Grampus griseus ) and Cuvier 's beaked whale ( Ziphius cavirostris ). Less common are the minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata ), the Rauzahndelfin ( Steno bredanensis ), the killer whale (Orcinus orca) and the little orca ( Pseudorca crassidens ).
In 1992, a population survey by the Istituto Tethys, the organization Greenpeace and the University of Barcelona was conducted prior to the establishment of the protected area at the water surface. This 32,800 Striped dolphins and 830 fin whales were counted. However, another census in August 2008 resulted in a sharp decline in whale species, which was attributed to a lack of protection of the marine mammals. So was only a quarter of fin whales and less than half of the Striped dolphins are registered.