The program of the jubilee 30th Dolphin Day, July 1, began in the morning with the sea turtle Saturn release into the sea. After a several-month stay in the Sea Turtle Recovery Centre run by the Blue World Institute, Saturn spent the last month of his recovery in an outdoor sea pen to test buoyancy and gain strength. The first sea pen in Croatia, located in a safe bay by the island of Lošinj is part of the project “Improvment and Increase of Lošinj Sea Turtle Rescue Centre Capacity”, which is co-financed with EU funds from the Cohesion Fund.

On the 30th Dolphin Day, the Lošinj Education Centre presented new content – the Virtual Reality called ‘Dolphins and Underwater Noise’, which will be available to all our visitors from now on and draw their attention to the negative impact of underwater noise on dolphins and other marine organisms.  The interactive educational concept of virtual reality “Dolphins and underwater noise” was financed by the European Union from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund through the project “A New View of the Lošinj Subsea” as part of the FLAG Competition Measure 2.1. “Protecting the environment and encouraging sustainable management of natural resources” of the local development strategy in the fisheries of FLAG “Vela vrata”.

In the evening about 100 children participated in a “Treasure hunt” and other creative workshops.  For this occasion, we decorated the park with an exhibition of art works and canvas bags. These were painted by the students of M. Martinolić Elementary School during workshops within the project “Clean Island, Clean Sea” which was financed by the Ministry of Regional Development and EU funds.

While the children were busy with the mentioned activities, we presented the LIFE Delphi project to the parents and invited them to report their observations of marine mammals at sea through the citizen science application Marine Ranger and thus help the researchers in their work. At the end of the first day of the program, a Marine Pub Quiz was organized in the cinema hall of Veli Lošinj, in which seven five-member teams participated and tested their knowledge of marine topics until late at night.

As befits a great jubilee, the program of the 30th Dolphin Day was extended to the following day, July 2nd with the concert of local ‘Koma atmosfera band’ which was held on the waterfront in Veli Lošinj in front of the fish market. We are sure that some 200 visitors of this event will remember the 30th Dolphin Day for having a good time.

This rich program would not be possible without the sponsors, to whom we would like to thank for their support. Therefore, a big thank you to TZ Mali Lošinj, the City of Mali Lošinj, BioBaza and the support of the local community, which helped in various ways in the organization and design of this year’s program: MO Veli Lošinj, association Relive, Moby Dick gelatteria, restaurant Marina.

Dolphin Day has been recognized as ‘European Maritime Day in My Country’ – #EMDinMyCountry.