International Day of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise

International Day of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise - Saturday, 17th May 2003

ASCOBANS (The Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Seas) has designated Saturday, 17th May 2003 the "International Day of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise", to highlight the plight of this highly endangered cetacean species.

It is estimated that only 600 harbour
porpoises remain in the Baltic Sea.

This species is the only native species
of cetaceans in the Baltic, and is highly
endangered.

Action is urgently required to prevent a
further deterioration of their conservation
status and a recovery plan is a
long-standing aim of ASCOBANS.

The 9th Meeting of the Advisory Committee, held in Hindås, Sweden, put the finishing touches to the ASCOBANS Recovery Plan for Baltic harbour Porpoises.

The plan, which is also known as the Jastarnia Plan, named after the Polish town where the plan was drafted in January 2002, will be submitted to Parties for adoption at the 4th Meeting of the Parties in Esbjerg, Denmark, in August 2003. The objectives of the plan are to:

1. Implement precautionary management measures immediately to reduce the bycatch rate to two or fewer porpoises per year in the portion of the Baltic that was surveyed in 1995;

2. improve knowledge in key subject areas as quickly as possible;

3. develop more refined (quantitative) recovery targets as new information becomes available on population status, bycatch and other threats.

It is hoped that the implementation of this plan will contribute to averting a further decline of the Baltic harbour porpoise population.

ASCOBANS -The Jastarnia Plan is available as a PDF(820KB) download from the ASCOBANS web site - Go to the DOCUMENTS Section

If you experience difficulty click here to download the Jastarnia plan pdf from the ECBC web site - pdf (820KB)

Top