Waddenzee (Wadden Sea), located at the southeastern part of North Sea, is an intertidal zone in grand scale. Extending from Dutch Den Helder to Danish Esbjerg, the Waddenzee has over 500 km long shoreline with a width of more than 10 km. Due to the seafloor is shallow and level without much slope, the large foreshores are flooded during high tide, and dry up and form dunes during low tide.
This natural wonder covers the Wadden Sea National Parks of Germany, the Wadden Sea Conservation Area of Netherlands and the range of Frisian Islands. The Dutch-German section of the Waddenzee is inscribed on the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage Site on 26 June 2009.
With the huge, flat intertidal ecosystem, the Waddenzee forms various unique and bio-diversified habitats such as estuaries, tidal river channels, mud flats, sandbars, sea-grasslands, mussel beds, salt marshes and beaches. It is one of the most undisturbed, natural ecological units in the world, and it’s a home to multitude plants and animal species including the endangered harbor seals and harbor porpoises. The intertidal zone is also a wintering site, migration stopover and breeding ground for hundred of thousands of ducks, geese, seabirds, gulls and terns as well as nursery for North Sea fishes.
Many nature lovers come to this part of the world every year to see the spectacular natural beauty.
Endangered Species at Waddenzee
The number of harbor seals (also known as common seals) in Waddenzee has been seriously declining in the recent years. Like any other areas in North Sea, the habitats of marine mammals are constantly threatened by environmental destruction, water pollution and illegal hunting.
Some counties are using North Sea as garbage dump. Base on a research conducted with fulmars in this area, 95% of the birds contained polymer materials in their stomachs. An agreement of Conservation of Seals was signed among the Wadden Sea countries — Germany, Denmark and Netherlands to ban hunting of endangered species.
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