The 5th Meeting of ACCOBAMS Extended Bureau was held in Monaco, 26-27 April 2022. The meeting was attended by the Bureau Members, the National Focal Point of Monaco, the Chair of the Scientific Committee, the representatives of the Mediterranean and Black Sea Sub Regional Coordination Units, the designated experts and the ACCOBAMS Secretariat.
ACCOBAMS is glad to support the exhibition “T’es Cap” by Stephanie Natera, Alain Donnat and “SOS Grand Bleu” at Espace Namouna, Saint Jean Cap Ferrat – France, dedicated to the theme “La défense des cétacés en méditerranée et la défense écologique du milieu marin”. https://www.saintjeancapferrat-tourisme.fr/event/exposition-tes-cap/
Cetacean lives are at risk. Amongst many threats they face, the detonation of underwater bombs. As the economy further moves out to the sea, explosives from World War II are still detonated to reduce risks to humans. But this practice may kill cetaceans.
ACCOBAMS provides Guidelines on Explosive disposal of residual war weapons, use of explosives for testing or for decommissioning structures https://accobams.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Res.7.13_Anthropogenic-Noise.pdf
Current situation: the war in the Black Sea The war started in February puts the entire Black Sea basin under a huge threat. Apart from human suffering and losses, nature and wildlife are threatened by bombardments from warships, sea contamination due to toxic products, explosives, fuel and ammunition.
Since late February, at least 80 common dolphins were recorded as stranded ashore at the Black Sea coast of Turkey, an unusually high number of individuals.
ACCOBAMS Emergency Task Force The assistance of an Emergency Task Force in the Black Sea is strongly recommended with the specific goal of monitoring the effect of military activities in the Black Sea and adjacent waters.
Under the auspice of ACCOBAMS, the annual marine mammal necropsy workshop is organized by the department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, (University of Padova, Italy) and the Department of Veterinary Pathology (University of Liege, Belgium), in collaboration with the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics LAB (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain) and the UMS Pelagis, Centre de Recherche sur les Mammifères Marins (University of La Rochelle, France).
The main goal of this workshop was to train experts biologists and veterinarians from the different ACCOBAMS countries and other countries, on the European Best Practice Document on cetaceans postmortem investigations and tissue sampling in order to gain information on possible threats for cetaceans conservation. For this reasons, the objectives of the workshop are :
(1) to train experts on cetaceans necropsy procedures, data collection and tissues sampling ;
(2) to gain information on possible threats;
(3) to encourage harmonization to allow regional analysis and interpretation ;
(4) to use new technologies to develop and to apply the concept of telenecropsy and the on-line consultancy of marine mammal health specialists.
