We vote »Yes« for stray animals!

Dear friends,

In Europe stray dogs and cats suffer tremendous torments each day — they are hunted and maltreated, beaten up and poisoned; they are caught and kept in so-called »animal shelters« that provide no escape: in these camps thousands of stray animals are penned up to meet a cruel death.

Despite the existence of animal protection laws stray animals have become a questionable source of income in many European countries: their capture, custody and killing offer good business opportunities by involving public money originally designated to improve the stray animals situation.

EU parliamentarians Alain Hutchinson, David Hammerstein und Neil Parish have written a declaration on the welfare of pets and stray animals (PDF).
You can read it here:
English
Español
Italiano

The declaration claims hard punishment for abandoning and maltreating pets and stray animals. EU Member States are requested to commit themselves to regulate the overpopulation of stray animals and to lay sterilization and vaccination down in law and to implement them accordingly.
A vote on this declaration will be held in EU parliament shortly — the time limit to sign this declaration is May 7th, 2009.

It is crucial that a majority of the EU parliamentarians’ votes are obtained for this declaration. Please support this initiative by asking EU parliamentarians to sign with this online petition.

Trekking in Golfo Aranci

Trekking in Golfo Aranci

Usually we take a day off on Sunday and if the weather conditions are adequate and we have extra energy ;) we like to have a trekking day (after a week at sea the best way of disconnect is doing a trekking itinerary).

Our study area in Golfo Aranci contains wonderful, almost untouched hills terrain and coastal land. It can be compared to a marvellous transatlantic ship ready to take to sea but that has been held up in the shipyard. Depending on the side or area you want to explore, you will come across hills (Capo Figari and Monte Ruju), grassland, rocks, valleys, forests, beaches and fantastic cliffs. All this amazing variety can be seen in Golfo Aranci area itself. Om a clear day you can see the fantastic mountains of Corsica.

The isolated conditions so typical of an island have led to a number of species and subspecies of animal and insect life that can only be found in Sardinia. The Papilio hospiton butterfly, for example, is on the list of endangered Italian butterflies. There are a number of native species of reptiles, mammals (as mouflons, Sardinian fox, wild boar, etc) and abundant birdlife (several species of Falco, hawks, Passeriformes and marine birds).

See you,

BDRI's Environmental Policy

Dear friends,

please find bellow our updated 2009 Environmental policy:

As a marine science research team, BDRI researchers have witnessed first hand the effects global warming and climate change have on our planet. We are committed to the implementation of proactive measures to help protect and sustain the local and global environment for future generations. The BDRI aim to achieve the objective of improved environmental performance through pollution prevention and continuous improvement.

1. BDRI seeks to conserve natural resources by ensuring the responsible use of energy, water and materials by the continual implementation of the 3R's (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle).

2. We know the importance of reduce the energy consumption derived of the use of polluting fossil fuels, promoting the use of renewable energy. In order to reduce noise and air pollution derived of the use of our research boats, BDRI is supporting renewable energy through the
equipment of our principal research vessel with solar panel.

3. “BDRI Carbon Free expeditions”: To neutralize cruise related greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, the BDRI will calculate the amount of carbon emitted by each research cruise itinerary it offers then divides that by the number of volunteers cruising each year. In turn, when a volunteer participate in our project, BDRI contributes a portion of the volunteering fee to buy solar panels to produce renewable energy and reduce the air pollution
associated with electricity production during our research. Furthermore, “BDRI Carbon Free Expeditions” campaign has no effect on the price of its volunteering opportunities in any way. In other words, the cost of the campaign is not passed onto the volunteer.

4. BDRI will continue to take steps to minimise any detrimental impacts on the environment caused by the operation of their researchers and volunteers. BDRI aims specifically to minimise the adverse environmental impacts associated with effluent discharge, water use, emissions to both air and water, and waste generation through best available techniques as they emerge in order to prevent pollution and also to maintain water quality.

Please if you have any question do not hesitate to ask to us!

info@thebdri.com

BDRI projects and Spanish newspapers

Dear friends,

if you understand spanish! (or not...) You can read a newspaper article about one of our last research projects on:

http://www.publico.es/ciencias/206183/decibelios/espantar/flipper

Best regards,

February report - Field research

Dear friends,

during the last month of February things have been crazy due to the really bad weather conditions. During the first two weeks the weather was horrible, windy days and a lot of rain... But from the third week of February the weather changed drastically and we were able to spent 12 days at sea to conduct opportunistic photo-identification surveys and bioacoustical studies in good conditions. Evidently the bad weather days we were working hard with lab-work (finishing 2008 photo-id catalogue and new scientific papers).

During February also we started a new research project, "BSD" a test of acoustics deterrent devices to reduce the risk of dolphins bycatch, to carry out from February to June 2009 in partnerships with engineers working for the Spanish goverment. Since the use of acoustic deterrent devices does not is efective in most waters of the Mediterranean sea we will analyse the acoustical characteristics of a new deterrent device in order of indentify the physical characteristics and behavioural effects on bottlenose dolphins.

Here you can see some pictures...

Best regards,