Kategorie: News
Austrian couple devotes itself to the search for fan mussels
Living noble pen shells (Pinna nobillis) have been found at the island of Cres in recent weeks. This makes them the only living fan mussels left in the underwater world of this Kvarner island.
The biggest credit for the find near the fishing port of Valun goes to the Austrian couple Jutta and Mario Hofer; the operators of the diving center diving.DE Cres at the campsite Kovačine.
The Hofers introduce the project "Conservation of noble pen shells in the Adriatic" to each group of divers they lead to the dive, introducing them to the issue of mass mortality of noble pen shells , which is especially topical in the Mediterranean Sea in the last five years. The divers are taught how to recognize a fan mussel and check if it is alive.
For example, during a recent recreational dive, two live noble pen shells were found at depths between 15 and 20 meters. The two mussels live only 15 meters apart. The divers recorded the location, filmed everything and reported their find.
The mussels were then examined by divers from the Croatian Veterinary Institute, Željko Mihaljević and Angela Bradarić. "I have dived all over the world in different seas, but I have never experienced such an adventure! With the divers from the Croatian Veterinary Institute, I took a fishing boat on the Tramontana to the location of the noble pen shells . The local fisherman's boat is not adapted to the diver's needs, especially when it comes to climbing back to the boat, but despite the unpleasant wind, we wanted to make sure they were live noble pen shells . When the experts confirmed that we had found two live mussels, we knew that all our efforts had paid off," said Jutta Hofer.
The noble pen shells were named Ivan and Denise in honor of the divers who first discovered them.
Jutta and Mario Hofer have been coming to Cres for diving for almost thirty years. Finding live noble pen shells is the crowning glory of their dives. They travel to the northern Adriatic from Carinthia, but they see their future in the underwater of Kvarner. By engaging in the search for live noble pen shells , they want to show gratitude to the sea for everything it gives them.
"The story of the Austrian couple and the local people of Cres is the best example of how the community can participate in the search. We ask other recreational divers and fishermen to pay attention to the seabed and actively participate in the search and location of live noble pen shells ," said Angela Bradarić, who recently found a live noble pen shell in the Cres shipyard together with Neno Starčić, owner of the Subseason diving center in Mali Lošinj. There, a collector for larvae was set up so that the fan mussels can be bred under controlled conditions and released back into the wild.
In addition to Angela Bradarić and Željko Mihaljević, epidemiologist Miroslav Benić is also part of the Croatian Veterinary Institute field team.
On the project "Conservation of noble pen shells in the Adriatic", the Croatian Veterinary Institute cooperates with the Public Institution Sea and Karst and the Public Institution Brijuni National Park. The project is co-financed from the Funds for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency and the implementation is coordinated by the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development.
More Informationen:
diving.DE Cres Homepage
diving.DE Cres on Taucher.Net