Admiral Ahmed Khaled, the commander of the Egyptian Navy Fleet in the Red Sea over the past years will be moving on to a new post. Upon his departure the HEPCA team would like to thank him and commend him for his valiant efforts in the field of conservation.

When we talk about our scientific achievements and findings most people wonder if this is useful at all for them in their daily lives. Of course it is! But science is not always easy to be simplified.

Watching and swimming with dolphins in their natural habitat has become very popular in the Hurghada area these last few years. The increase of these activities, in particular when unregulated, is highly likely to represent a serious threat to the wild dolphin populations inhabiting this region. Fanous is known to be a very critical habitat for Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus)...

New year – new boat; but same great old team. The members of our mooring team have been with us for around seven years now and every day we are thankful to have them. Maintaining the largest mooring buoy system in the world is not an easy job to do, but a job that they do with endless passion and contribution for the sake of Red Sea conservation.

 This year started with a big bang: several hotels were reported to serve endangered species on their seafood buffets including sharks and napoleon fish.

January does not seem to be a lucky month for dolphins. On the 10^th of January HEPCA received a phone call about a dead dolphin found on a beach north of El Gouna; only a few days after (17^th of January) a second call: another dead dolphin has been spotted floating in the narrow channel between El Gouna and the large reef just in front. Thanks to the alert of Emperor Divers and...

The whole HEPCA team would like to congratulate its esteemed member Royal Evolution for becoming the SharkGUARDIAN of the Year 2012!

The depletion of fish stocks, one of the major global and local marine conservation issues, has so far been poorly addressed in the Red Sea region. Over the last two decades the fishing effort in the Red Sea has increased dramatically with severe impacts upon the fish stock and potentially on the entire marine ecosystem as well as on the entire Red Sea community. Some key commercial species are believed...

Over the last couple of weeks we have received several concerned emails from enthusiastic divers about the “disappearance of sharks” from the Egyptian Red Sea, a scenario they reckoned the obvious result of months of illegal fishing operations possibly happened throughout the year, taking advantage of the post-revolution instability. Drawing such conclusions without a robust scientific...

HEPCA has received concerned reports from several visitors of more than one the of the Albatros Hotels chain regarding what can only be described as a heinous crime by the hotel management, that does not only demonstrate their blatant lack of concern over the Red Sea’s natural resources, but clearly displays a complete ignorance of what sustains their own industry and future. From the information...

2011 has witnessed unprecedented growth in HEPCA, most remarkably in the field of solid waste management. On the 10^th of February HEPCA undertook sole responsibility for the collection of solid waste in Hurghada, a city with a population of more than 300,000 people and a daily solid waste production rate in the range of 450 and 500 tons! This project materialized into over 23 million pounds...

Almost 20 years ago the diving and snorkelling industry of the Red Sea expanded to an extent that anchoring damage on reefs became a very visible and serious threat to the marine ecosystem. For this reason HEPCA was founded in order to establish a mooring system to protect marine life. By placing mooring buoys on dive sites and therefore preventing boats from anchoring on reefs, the Red Sea was able...

In February 2011, HEPCA launched the first Red Sea Turtle Project in order to increase scientific knowledge of marine turtles and improve their conservation. In order to achieve its goals, HEPCA launched in 2011:

The Red Sea Dolphin Project, the first survey completely dedicated to study abundance, distribution and habitat use of cetaceans in the southern waters of the Egyptian Red Sea, concludes its second year of research at sea. The following is a brief summary of the accomplishments of 2011: