15 May 2011: The 9th International Day of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise

On Sunday, 15 May 2011, the International Day of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise will be celebrated around the shores of the Baltic Sea for the 9th time.

The Secretariat has received notification of events planned in Germany (Aquazoo Düsseldorf and Zoo Duisburg), Lithuania (Lithuanian Sea Museum) and Poland (Polish Ecological Club/Coalition Clean Baltic and Hel Marine Station).

The Aquazoo Düsseldorf in Germany is planning to display the ASCOBANS exhibition in German, which has been made available through the Secretariat, and set up an information stand on the Baltic harbour porpoise. A porpoise skull will be exhibited along with a life-size silhouette of a harbour porpoise. Educational games for children are planned. ASCOBANS leaflets, brochures, posters and postcards have been passed to the organizers.

The Zoo Duisburg is planning to display the German-language ASCOBANS exhibition along with information material for a series of talks and presentations that will be given at the end of the month. The zoo will receive outreach material and the exhibition banners from the Secretariat.

The Lithuanian Sea Museum is again joining in the celebration of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise Day. The entire third week of May will be dedicated to the education of children about harbour porpoises and the threats they face in the Baltic Sea. Specialists of the Lithuanian Sea Museum together with scientists from Klaipeda University will spread information about porpoises at schools, some educational programmes will be held in the museum and as the highlight at the end of the week children from an art school will make sculptures of harbour Porpoises.

The Polish Ecological Club in collaboration with Coalition Clean Baltic has produced stickers "The Baltic Sea starts here" in all local languages. Several hundred of these stickers in the Polish language have been made available to Hel Marine Station for use in their annual event on the occasion of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise Day.

 

This year, the ASCOBANS Secretariat will deliver guest lectures on the biology and conservation of the harbour porpoise in the Baltic Sea in three universities along the German Baltic coast - on 11 May the lecture will be given in Greifswald, on 12 May in Rostock and on 13 May in Kiel. The ASCOBANS exhibition as well as information material will be taken along.

Information about IDBHP events of the past is contained in the Handbook, which can be downloaded here.

All participating institutions are encouraged to report back to the Secretariat about their events. We will put a short report on the activities on this website and include the information and photos in the next update of the Handbook.

Last updated on 25 March 2014

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