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Ever since its inception in 1994, CRAM Foundation has attended to hundreds of protected animals of different species due to diseases, injuries or dead strandings along the Catalan coast. The number of assisted animals varies depending on the season and the year. This is due to natural fluctuations in the wild populations, related with water temperature, food disposal or oceans currents, among others causes.
The animals found dead in a good state of conservation have a complete necropsy performed to try to determinate the cause of the death. If it is not possible, we just determine the sex and take picture and biometric measures. All this data helps to understand the health status of wild populations of sea turtles and cetaceans in the North-west Mediterranean Sea, and it is a reflection of the health of the whole marine ecosystem.
TURTLES
Graph 1 shows the total number of turtles assisted by CRAM Foundation. Most of them are caught alive by fishermen as bycatch (gráficas 2 y 3). It is thanks to the Campaign “Ajudem-la” (Help them), run by CRAM Foundation every year in the fishing guilds around Catalonia. Rehabilitation rates of these turtles is very high (gráfica 4).
Total turtles recovered 1994-2009
Graph 1: Total loggerhead turtles admitted to the CRAM Rehabilitation Centre
Causes of admission of turtles 1994-2009
Graph 2: Admission causes of loggerhead turtles in CRAM.
The majority of them are bycatch of the fishing industry
% of turtles bycaught by fishing gear using hooks 1994-2009
Graph 3: Percentage of turtles caught due to long-line bycatch
% of success 1994-2009
Graph 4: Rehabilitation rate of logger-head turtles admitted in CRAM.
Most of them are treated and released again to the sea.
CETACEANS
Unfortunatelly, most cetaceans strand in our coasts dead, in different stages of conservations (Graph 5). In the course of these 15 years, there are some peaks of strandings, that coincide with Morbillivirus outbreaks (1993 y 2007) and the beginning of the “Concerning” Campaign and the 112 Emergency Service (2003).
Total number of cetaceans recorded in CRAM between 1994 and 2008, and their conservation status
Graph 5: Total number of cetaceans registered in CRAM.
It can be noted that most of them arrive dead to the beach
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