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Its southern beaches, for instance, are the most important nesting areas of the loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) in the Mediterranean. Around 500-600 turtles come to Laganas Bay in the spring to mate and lay their eggs. From the end of May until early August, the females come onto the beach at night, dig a ditch of about 50 centimeters deep with their hind legs and deposit about 120 eggs the size of table-tennis balls, which they then cover with sand.
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Each turtle makes two to three nests and the eggs hatch after about eight weeks. This is a perilous time for the young turtles as not only do seagulls enjoy them as a snack, but the period coincides with the high tourism season. Hatchlings head for the water but can be easily disoriented by the human presence and for this reason there are restrictions for bathers in the several reproduction areas.
Conservation has met with opposition from locals, whose land has been requisitioned without their being compensated for it, as well as from tourism operators. Nevertheless, WWF Hellas has bought a part of the nesting beach where entry is prohibited and the designation of the bay as a national marine park (NMPZ) in 1999 has produced encouraging results.
Guards provide information and guidance, while a series of videos, presented at the Thematic Exhibition Center in Dafni, offer virtual visits to the protected area in order to observe various phases of the turtles’ biological cycle, including reproduction and the hatching of the eggs. Archelon, the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, has a rescue center at the Third Marina in Glyfada, southern Athens (tel 210.523.1342), where visitors can see turtles in the last stage of rehabilitation before they are released back into the sea (bookings are necessary).
The NMPZ is also designed to protect the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus), which mostly lives in the caves of the isolated western coast of the island.
The park is also supposed to be a protected safe haven for endangered birds and migratory species in particular, as Zakynthos is on one of the three major migration routes in Greece. Ηowever, illegal hunting is widespread.
Εight of the 21 birds of prey in the Mediterranean reproduce here.
Tel. 26950.29870, Thematic Center: 6973.330.786, www.nmp-zak.org
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