Recovery Centre
The Palma Aquarium Foundation is the organisation in charge of assisting marine fauna strandings that occur in the Balearic Islands. In 2014, Palma Aquarium signed the service contract: ‘Monitoring and Recovery of Catalogued Marine Fauna in the Balearic Islands’ with COFIB (Consortium for the Recovery of Fauna in the Balearic Islands), an organisation that belongs to the Servei de Protecció d’Espècies de la Conselleria de Medi Ambient i Territori del Govern de les Illes Balears (Species Protection Service of the Balearic Islands Ministry of the Environment and Territory).
Since June 2022, assistance for stranded marine fauna in the Balearic Islands has been the responsibility of the Palma Aquarium Foundation and is part of the project ‘Conservation and protection of endangered marine species (sea turtles, cetaceans and sharks, under the acronym OCEMIB, supported by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) through the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRTR), financed by the European Union NextGenerationEU funds.
OCEMIB Project
Sea turtles, cetaceans and sharks are indicators of the health of marine ecosystems. The Balearic Sea is an important habitat for these migratory species, which are currently facing serious conservation problems, both of anthropogenic and natural origin, resulting in episodes of strandings of live or dead specimens. The Palma Aquarium Foundation has an equipped and trained network that acts in an appropriate, fast, efficient, coordinated and systematic way in these stranding episodes. In the case of live animals, it offers appropriate care to stranded animals, and once they are recovered, they are reintroduced to the sea. In the case of both live and dead animals, data and biological samples are collected. The aim is to contribute, together with other entities, to increasing scientific and technical knowledge about the current state of the populations of these species, and to create a standardised network on which to base the management and conservation of these species.
Veterinary staff
In order to guarantee adequate assistance to the animals, the OCEMIB Project has two veterinarians who are in charge of carrying out diagnostic tests, assessment, monitoring and operations (where necessary) on the animals.
