IN SUPPORT OF NATURE CONSERVATION

All around the world, thousands of birds and their habitats are endangered. For that reason, it is important to preserve bird populations where they naturally come. The organisation I’m volunteering in is called „Biom“, It’s non- governmental nature protection organisation that is based in Zagreb in Croatia and has several project related to animals’ conservation and research. The name of the project I take part in is „Island birds project“.

It’s about the conservation and research work

of three locally endangered bird species that breed on isolated islands in Mediterranean sea in Dalmatian region of Croatia. We are trying to find out the problems that have a negative effect on our target birds’ populations and do our best to help them to increase their breeding success. The aim of the project is to find out more about what are the main problems of the protection

of three marine bird species: The Audouin’s Gull, The Scopoli’s Shearwater and Yelkouan Shearwater. The project is planning to set up a base for the recovery of marine bird populations in Special protected areas in southern part of Croatia. I have already spent three months here and had many memorable moments. 

We were working several small islands that are on the territory of Lastovo Natural Park. Did some conservation work to help previously mentioned bird species to have a successful breeding year. Now they are already on their eggs and waiting for their chicks that will born very soon. We have also done nest searching and found more nests of our target birds than other researchers last year, so it is a positive news and sign of the success of the project. We do more than 10 sea transects every month to find the resting and feeding territories for our target birds in the Mediterranean sea and find out which bird species use the sea routes during the migration. For the next months as planned according to the project I will go to another town and volunteer in the local office of the organisation Biom and do some different kind of fieldwork in the mountains. We will look for Eurasian lynx and other mammals and birds which need to be scientifically understood better.