Turtles and other marine life continue to wash up dead in Bari, Italy

Come with the storms, the bodies of turtles and other animals.

It is those killed by bottom trawls as by nets or hung on a hook. Then there is the pollution of the sea due to heavy metals or plastic.

With heavy seas, arrive at the shore.

“Now have become many, too many – said Pasquale Salvemini, head of the Center for Recovery of Sea Turtles of Molfetta – In just two days on the coast of Molfetta they were counted five. All specimens of large dimensions, all females, and if they had remained in life, potentially ripe for reproduction. On the coast of Giovinazzo, however, is a bottlenose dolphin stranded about 3 meters, while a small turtle (23 cm carapace length) was recovered by some citizens in distress along the coast of mussels. The latter, which found in a state of hypothermia in the cold a few days ago, also had hook and line that comes out of your mouth. “

For environmentalists it is a bleak picture.

To cope with the serious situation in the Recovery Center, in collaboration with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Bari, the University of Rome La Sapienza and the University of Camerino will match days at some of the actions of their research in the Adriatic. Important will be collaborating with the Veterinary Service of the local health authority, with the police, from the Municipal Police, and the Harbour.

For dead specimens will be provided samples of tissue for genetic analysis (to be performed on the carcasses in an advanced state of decomposition), necropsy to determine the cause of death for carcasses still in good condition and also sampling for scientific purposes to be drawn from the faculties mentioned.

In this case it will be possible to investigate only through individuals who died on the anthropogenic causes (eg hooks or lines, drowning, plastic bags or other anthropogenic factors such as pollutants). “Also – the statement concludes the Recovery Center – the use of dead specimens provides an important contribution to the study of other biological and ecological aspects such as diet and nesting sites of origin of the specimens, through the examination of stomach contents, the isotopic profile, the genetic markers. “