The number of charter boats and flotilla sailing holiday companies operating around the Ionian Islands has steadily increased during the last couple of decades. The resulting regular activity of this large fleet not only offers a huge potential for the recording of opportunistic cetacean sightings, but also calls for the design of adequate education and awareness initiatives addressed to boat users. Moreover, in the fragile Gulf of Ambracia, hosting a critically endangered bottlenose dolphin population, increasing and unregulated dolphin-watching activities represent a potential source of disturbance.  The increase in boat traffic and the potential disturbance it generates pose a threat to marine mammal populations, which may cause unnecessary stress by disrupting the animal’s natural behaviours.

Such threat can be minimised by applying a basic code of conduct when coming across a group of cetaceans or monk seals, which the IDP actively promotes across its website, social media and through a series of events targeting the most relevant stakeholders in the nautical sector.