Tourists ‘saw’ the Mediterranean seals in blue voyages

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

Mediterranean seals will be saved thanks to a project by Bodrum-based Tussock tourism agency. Overall 15,000 euros has been collected since the project launched in 2003 as part of the “Support from Blue Voyages to Mediterranean Seals” campaign. The Tussock tourism agency, which organizes blue voyages along the Turkish coasts, launched a fund raising and awareness campaign among its customers in 2003 and has collected 15,000 euros since then by selling small Mediterranean seal models to Turkish and foreign tourists during the voyages. Last year, 3,000 euros out of the overall 15,000 euros in revenue was donated on Friday to the Underwater Research Society-Mediterranean Seal Research Group (SAD-AFAG) to be used for the Mediterranean Seals Information and Protection Network Project, reported the Doğan News Agency. “It is really satisfactory to see the intensive interest shown by the domestic and international tourists to the project for Mediterranean seals.

  We have collected overall 15,000 euros but small Mediterranean seal models decorate numerous houses and workplaces in four corners of the world. We launched this project to preserve the Mediterranean seals the number of which decreased to around 100 as well as the regions where these lovely creatures, a kind of symbol of the Aegean and Mediterranean, live.

  The increasing interest every year makes us happy,” said Loes Douze, Dutch representative of Tussock.   Noting that they also gifted the Mediterranean seals' photographs taken during the voyages to tourists in order to highlight the issue as part of the campaign, he said, “We want boat owners and those who earn their living from sea tourism to be more sensitive to the preservation of Mediterranean seals.”   Douze said they would also initiate a new project and that they would have a Mediterranean seal flag made in cooperation with the Bodrum Mariners Association and Turkish Chamber of Shipping. “We will ask all big and small boats to use this flag in summer. We will donate the proceeds from this campaign to the SAD-AFAG.” Yalçın Savaş of SAD-AFAG said they were pleased to have such a contribution from people who are involved in tourism for the Mediterranean Seals Information and Protection Network Project they jointly held with Greece. “We carry out a joint project with Greece in order to follow up the health situation and lives of the Mediterranean seals living between the Çanakkale-Fethiye line as well as providing emergency aid to them. The contributions to be provided for our project will thus play an important role in protection of nature and seals. I hope that Tussock's project will be model for others who earn their lives from the marine sector,” said Savaş, adding that they also applied to the Environment and Forestry Ministry for Bodrum, Bodrum Peninsula as well as all the islands in the region to be declared a Mediterranean Seal Protected Area.