With the population of shellfish at worrying lows and the tourist season almost over, the State has finally taken measures to protect this large, critically endangered bivalve from ship anchors in the Mar Menor, one of its main threats: The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma), through the Cartagena Maritime Captaincy, has issued a resolution that prohibits the anchoring of boats in four areas of the lagoon to avoid damage to the ‘Pinna nobilis’.
The resolution will take effect immediately and its main objective is to protect the areas with the highest concentration of this mollusk that can reach up to 120 centimeters in length and that came to have millions of specimens in the Mar Menor, although it is currently estimated that less than a thousand remain. For this, the areas prohibited for anchoring in the surroundings of the islands of Perdiguera and Barón (the latter also known as Isla Mayor), Punta del Galán-Pedruchillo and Matas Gordas will be permanently marked.
This measure of the State Administration responds to the request made by the General Directorate of the Natural Environment of the Autonomous Community of Murcia “just a month ago”, reports the Mitma, with the aim of following up on an order from the Ministry for Transition Ecology and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco) which declares the critical situation of various marine species, including the common shell, and projects for their recovery are declared of general interest.
The Maritime Captaincy recalls that failure to comply with the prohibition of anchoring in the marked areas, except in danger or force majeure, “may constitute an administrative offense that could culminate in a sanction in the field of the Civil Navy.”
The populations of shellfish in the Spanish Mediterranean have almost disappeared in recent years, since 2016, due to the appearance of a parasite that lodges in the digestive system of these mollusks and kills them suddenly. The last two strongholds of the ‘Pinna nobilis’ are the Mar Menor and the Ebro Delta, where the high salinity of the water would be stopping the entry of the ‘Haplosporidium pinnae’ protozoan.
However, the eutrophication process suffered by the Mar Menor due to the entry of nitrates from agricultural activity, together with several episodes of lack of oxygen that have occurred since 2019, have degraded the habitat of shellfish, which also suffer direct attacks such as dragging of fishing nets, anchor hits and even bathers jumping from the boats.
Both the Autonomous Community and the Miteco are carrying out scientific projects for the captive breeding of the shell, in order to repopulate the Mar Menor and other areas of the Mediterranean with specimens produced both in the aquarium of the University of Murcia and in the Species bank provisionally installed in Portmán, until its final location in Águilas.
#Ministry #Transport #prohibits #anchoring #areas #Mar #Menor #protect #shells