The Valencian regional government on Friday approved the emergency declaration of the work and actions necessary to control the outbreak of botulism in the protected wetlands of southern Alicante.
The Ministry of Ecological Transition declared the emergency and announced actions to remove corpses and transfer animals affected by the disease, detected in the El Hondo Natural Park, to the Santa Faz wildlife recovery centre.
El Hondo Natural Park is part of the old Elche lagoon, created by the mouth of the Vinalopó River and almost completely dried up between the Middle Ages and the 18th century, to convert it into arable land.
The immediacy of the control actions, for an amount of 150,688 euro, has made it possible to minimise the effects of the infection, caused by anoxia as a result of the high temperatures, in the wetland, as well as preventing its spread to other adjacent wetlands such as the Clot de Galvany, els Carrissars d’Elx, the Salinas de Santa Pola or the Lagunas de la Mata-Torrevieja.
The disease was detected in June in the Parque Natural del Hondo, an area that is home to populations of waterfowl of great conservation value for biodiversity reasons. This is a fundamental nesting point at European level for the Anatidae, a species declared critically endangered at the national level.
