| 2 February - World Wetlands Day! |
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Wetlands are one of the greatest values of biological and landscape diversity. 40% of the total number of plants and animals is ecologically connected with wetlands and they have always had an important role in the development of human civilization. This development itself has become the biggest threat to its survival. Desiccation and melioration of arable land, pollution by industrial and municipal wastewater and excessive exploitation, is making wetlands slowly disappear. To informe the general public of these threats, 02 February is celebrated in the whole world as the Wetlands Day.  Croatia is a signatory to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands from 1971, which obliges each contracting party to the general conservation of wetlands in their territory. There are four Ramsar sites in Croatia untill now, but in spring 2012. Vrana Lake is to be added on the Ramsar list of wetlands of international importance, especially as important waterfowl habitat. Wetland area of the ornithological reserve is just a ramain of the former ten times larger Vrana mud swamp that is almost completelly dried up and brought to the brink of survival, together with the living world that depended on it, by ameliorative channels and digging of channel Prosika on the southeastern shore that connects the lake to the sea. From 1983 area is protected as an Ornithological Reserve, and from 1999 the whole lake and some surrounding land is protected as a Nature Park. In recent countings of wintering birds at Vrana Lake, a record of 195.000 wintering coots (Fulica atra) has been recorded. It seems that the anticyclone in the north forced the coots to seek for the wintering site further south, and it was the Vrana Lake where they found enough food to spend the winter, or at least continue their migration to the south.  |
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