Project to examine the lives of the whales and other marine life around Fuerteventura

The Cabildo of Fuerteventura has,in collaboration with the University of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, funded a project costing 30,000 euros and lasting for two months, to place transmitters on whales, which will allow volunteers and experts to examine the habitat of those and other marine species around Fuerteventura.

"The study allows us to obtain, simultaneously, information on the presence, distribution and potential risk factors to the population of cetaceans of Fuerteventura, through tracking via satellite three specimens marked with radio transmitters. The objective is to try learn the way that the whales of the Canary Islands select their habitat, and which factors, human or otherwise, affect this selection in order to be able to establish pertinent measures of protection for the future conservation of the marine coastline of Fuerteventura” declared Lázaro Cabrera, who also stated that this would clarify if a permanent population of whales lives within the waters of Fuerteventura. This study would also create useful data for the preservation of the coasts, not only in Fuerteventura, but all around the Canary Islands.

This will be the first time that such a project has been developed in the Canary Islands in relation to whales, however turtles have been studied by this method previously in Fuerteventura.

During the daily pursuit of the whales, biogists of the ULPGC and other technicians, will be accompanied in their boats by a maximum of eight volunteers each day who will participate in a parallel study of the situation other marine inhabitants in the waters of Fuerteventura

The participation of the volunteers is fundamental to detect the distribution and abundance, not only of cetaceans, but of other marine species like birds and turtles, with the purpose of verifying the possible affect of the human presence in these surroundings. This aspect of the participation of volunteers constitutes the second important objective, by trying to promote social participation in the conservation tasks by allowing the population of Fuerteventura to be actively involved in studies of the protection of the environment.

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