The Vasco da Gama Aquarium (AVG) will release, on the 14th and 23rd of March, in the municipalities of Grândola and Mafra, around 900 endangered freshwater fish.
The objective of the project “Ex situ conservation of fluvial organisms”, developed in partnership with MARE-ISPA and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, is «to reproduce and maintain native species of freshwater fish of the Portuguese fauna, critically endangered, for restocking of their rivers of origin".
The rivers are then visited and fish populations are monitored by MARE-ISPA researchers. Participating institutions also carry out, with local schools, educational activities for the conservation of these native species and their habitats.
According to the National Maritime Authority, this is a way of «protecting species considered critically endangered due to the reduction of populations in the natural environment, caused by various factors», such as pollutant discharges, the increasingly frequent occurrence of prolonged summers and droughts, destruction of margin vegetation and proliferation of invasive plant and animal species.
On March 14, at 15:30 pm, 600 Portuguese bogas (Iberochondrostoma lusitanicum) born in the AVG between 2019 and 2022, descendants of specimens captured in the same stream, will be released on the Grândola stream (in the Eco-Parque Montinho da Ribeira). This is a critically endangered species that only exists in Portugal where it lives in the watersheds of the Tagus and Sado rivers and in the small streams of the West region and the region between Sado and Mira.
On the 23rd of March, at 11:00 am, near Sobral da Abelheira, in Mafra, 300 western roach (Achondrostoma occidentale) born in the AVG between 2019 and 2022, descendants of specimens captured in the same river. This is a critically endangered species that only exists in Portugal and only in 3 rivers: Safarujo, Alcabrichel and Sizandro.
The project is carried out in the year that AVG celebrates 125 years.
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