Another important project is the breeding in an artificially controlled environment of vulnerable species to reinforce the wild population of these species. In these projects, the foundation can obtain offspring that would be genetically viable, as the parents are wild specimens. This practice is called by-catch. The foundation first initiated this project with a species of nursehound shark that has had a high success rate, and more recently, two years ago, with seahorses. As Morrison explains, “We have a campaign with the fisherman who, when they catch the seahorses in their nets, they call us and we bring them in; we found a female and male to obtain babies and when the babies are a certain size, they are released into the wild. It is really important that we know they are from these waters, so as to maintain the gene pool.” It took a while to find the seahorses initially, because there were hardly any there. The population has drastically been reduced over the past 20 years.

‍

For each project like this, the foundation must raise funds to support each step of the process – from administrative work to the infrastructure that will house and feed the animals. The nursehound shark program was underwritten by eight various entities and for the seahorses, they received funding for the entire project from Banca March. Part of this funding included creating a lab to cultivate plankton in order to feed the baby seahorses, which need to feed on live prey. Soon, they will undertake a breeding project with pipefish. While the realities are that many of the seahorses will not survive before being set free, as the survival rate is very low the genetic information and research, including tissue samples, accumulated during the process is invaluable for the foundation and shared networks to further develop their knowledge and awareness of the species. Seahorses have coincidentally become a species that many others are focused on right now because of their vulnerability, making the foundation a critical partner.

‍

While 90% of the foundation’s focus is on the environment, 10% is social. A new volunteer program, called ‘Senior Marines’, and supported by CaixaBank, is centred on working with older or ‘veteran’ volunteers, typically retired people, who have the time and inclination to devote themselves to the project. They receive training and uniforms, and, as Morrison notes, “they have found a lot of success with this program.”