Seabird monitoring data in the Gulf of Taranto (Northern Ionian Sea, Central-eastern Mediterranean Sea)

The standardized monitoring of birds is essential to identify the areas of important conservation interest and obtain medium-long term trends that provide precious indications for a correct habitat management. In Italy, some groups of birds are monitored in a capillary manner, with now multi-year censuses, which are carried out simultaneously at international level, in the case of the International Waterbird Census (IWC) but the marine environment is home to many bird species that have an unfavourable conservation status, and others that are threatened with extinction which are not properly monitored by census programmes. This work aims to present the preliminary data collected during standardized monitoring activities in the Gulf of Taranto (Northern Ionian Sea, Central-eastern Mediterranean Sea) off the coast of Puglia and Basilicata. For a total of 379 poskeys and 606.4 km traveled in about 32 h of navigation, 16 species of seabirds have been sighted for a total of 4048 individuals.