The Strait of Gibraltar between Africa and Europe is only 14 km wide and home to seven different species of dolphins and whales. But it’s also one of the busiest international seaways in the world, so that collisions with cargo ships, underwater noise, and pollution by oil, chemicals, plastic and radioactive wastewater, overfishing, by-catch, trawl nets, ever increasing tourism, whale hunting and
invasive research are threatening them all the time…
In 1998 the Swiss Katharina Heyer established firmm (= foundation for information and research on marine mammals), a non-profit organization with, as the name already suggests, two very well thought out goals:
1) RESEARCH ON THE DOLPHINS AND WHALES IN THE STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR: Katharina Heyer works together with the university of Basel. firmm‘s research work includes among others the registration of all sightings, populations and migrations using photo-identification, taking plankton samples, and so on in the Strait of Gibraltar. This should deepen the knowledge about the dolphins and whales in this area and ultimately support firmm’s requirements for protection. The foundation firmm finances its research activities through gifts and through organizing whale watching courses for marine biology students and interested people, and tourist boat trips taking 2 or 3 hours. The revenues of the whale watching tours will also be used for building the Dolphin Sanctuary in Morocco…
2) SENSIBILIZING PEOPLE ON THE PROTECTION OF THE SEA AND THE ANIMALS LIVING IN IT: Under the motto ‘only what we people know, we can appreciate and love – and we are willing to protect’ Katharina Heyer tries to strive after sensibilization. For this she cooperates with Spanish authorities, environmental organizations, public institutions and the media. Furthermore she holds seminars and lectures just before the boat trips and at cultural and informative events at Spanish, Swiss and German schools and hotels, to associations and companies, in municipalities, etc. And she’s present with firmm at several travel fairs in Switzerland and Germany…
To realize the aims of her foundation, Katharina Heyer focuses on two key action areas year in year out. She spends the summer months from April to October in Tarifa, Spain. And in November, when the boat trips around Tarifa become impossible because of the wind, she returns to Stallikon in her country of birth, Switzerland, where she winters until March.
