We are living during completely unprecedented times. All over the internet, we have seen videos of marine animals said to be “reclaiming” their territory near coastlines, bays and beaches. Are these just false rumours or is marine wildlife really changing its behaviour?
Join Save The Med in a citizen science experiment as we set out to discover if and how the lockdown following the Covid-19 outbreak has potentially affected marine life in the Balearic Sea. As the Balearic Government slowly allows us to return to maritime activities we have a short window of opportunity to observe nature during a unique time in history.
To participate, use Save The Med’s questionnaire to record your observations from a particular area of the sea or coast. The questionnaire can be completed online or printed and sent to data@savethemed.org. Find the link on our website savethemed.org. Go to the news section and scroll to “Exploring the lockdown effect”. Add as much information as you can and if you have photos or videos of the sighting, please include them. Our only requirement is that you must already be familiar with the area you observe and its local fauna. This is because we are not just looking for information on the presence of animals, but of differences in their usual abundance and/or behaviour.
Whether you are a sailor, fisherman, diver, surfer, photographer etc. your observations matter! Please share this project with your seafaring friends and colleagues so they can join too! We’d like to thank Associació de Centres de Busseig de ses Illes Balears (ACBIB), Federació Balear de Confraries de Pescadors, Asociación Mallorquina de Pesca Recreativa Responsable, Paleârtica Films y Asociación Vell Marí for their collaboration.
Recently we called on all ocean lovers to send us clips of their favourite moments at sea and the response was awesome! It’s been an absolute pleasure to watch them and to combine them into a community video. Needless to say, it’s definitely triggered our cravings for the sea and we are more eager than ever to get back out there! Visit Save The Med Foundations Facebook or YouTube channel to check out the video and tell us about your favourite moments at sea in the comments!
Dive down from home!
If you’re not able to get back to sea quite yet, remember that you can dive down and discover the underwater world from home by downloading and printing our creative, marine inspired resources such as the STM colouring booklet and Sa Dragonera memory game! Find them on the news section of savethemed.org.
Remember the guy who pulled out a straw from a turtle’s nostril and filmed a giant squid in US waters for the first time?
If you missed our Live Lessons, they are all still available on our YouTube channel. In the most recent one Nathan Robinson, a marine biologist and ocean activist tells us about his research that focuses on using novel camera technologies to answer important ecological questions while simultaneously generating footage that helps raise awareness about the threats facing our oceans. Nathan first began down this career path after a video of him removing a plastic straw from a sea turtle's nose went viral. The video helped ignite a global movement to combat plastic pollution in our oceans and inspired people all around the world to reduce their use of single use plastics. Nathan has since moved to several other projects, including captured the first-ever footage of a giant squid in US waters. In his talk he shares his hopes of creating more footage that will provide the impetus we need to keep protecting our ocean planet and tells us about the one animal that he still dreams about filming one day. Can you guess which one it is? We couldn’t!
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