Croatia's Last Marine Mammal

Aug. 20, 2003 — A community of bottle-nosed dolphins squeezed between angry fishermen and noisy tourists in the waters off the island of Losinj can look ahead to brighter days after Croatian authorities agreed to proclaim the area a natural reserve.

A local environmentalist group, Plavi Svijet (Blue World,) put forward the initiative for the protection of one of the last sanctuaries for dolphins in the Adriatic Sea.

The northern island is home to a dozen enthusiasts who are observing some 120 bottle-nosed dolphins (Tursiops truncates) in order to save them from the destiny of the common dolphin, a species that has become extinct in the Adriatic.

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According to them, the bottle-nosed dolphin is the last of the mammals living in Croatian waters.

In 1987 the Tethys Research Institute launched the Adriatic Dolphin Project that has also been dedicated to research of the interaction between dolphins and humans.

"This project was one of the first of this kind in the Mediterranean," said Drasko Holcer, head of Plavi Svijet, which took over the project.

In the 1960s, when Croatia was part of communist Yugoslavia, authorities had encouraged the hunting of dolphins — considered a pest by fishermen — which resulted in the extinction of the common dolphin.

Although the country adopted a law on the protection of sea mammals in 1995, the end of the country's war of independence, bottle-nosed dolphins are still endangered.

They are struggling to survive the effects of pollution and over-fishing, while due to their curiosity every year dozens of their carcasses are found entangled in fishing nets.

However, according to Holcer, the biggest menace to dolphins is hordes of vacationers herding to Croatia's Adriatic coast every summer.

Disturbed by the noise of jet skis and speedboats, dolphins are frequently forced to abandon their habitats and move further from the coast, ending up in an unknown and less favorable environment of the open sea.

In order to protect the community of bottle-nosed dolphins around Losinj, Plavi Svijet has launched the project of creating the first natural reserve for dolphins in the Adriatic, but the details still have to be worked out, Holcer said.

The group finances itself through donations. Their biggest sponsor in 2003 was a Hungarian oil company, which donated some 100,000 euros ($110,000.)

At the beginning of August, Plavi Svijet opened an "educational center" offering lessons on the cetaceans.

Virtual adoption is another source of financing the group's activities. On its site (www.blue-world.org/adopt) lovers of dolphins are given the opportunity to "adopt" one for a symbolic sum of money.

Merciful souls will receive a protégé’s picture and a certificate of adoption.