This Italian city was founded by Spartans in 706 BC. Now it is building Europe’s first sea sanctuary for dolphins

More than 2,700 years ago, Spartan settlers crossed the Mediterranean and founded a city on the coast of southern Italy. Today, that ancient city is trying to reconnect with the sea in a way that would have been almost impossible to imagine in antiquity: by creating a sanctuary where dolphins that spent years in captivity can experience a natural marine environment.

The city is Taranto, in Italy's Puglia region, and its relationship with dolphins goes back much further than its modern conservation efforts.

According to an ancient Greek legend, Taras, the son of Poseidon, was thrown into the sea and rescued by a dolphin. He eventually founded the city that bears his name. The story became so closely associated with Taranto that dolphins appeared on ancient coins and other works of art and remain part of the city's identity today.


Now, more than 2,700 years after Taranto was founded, a new project is attempting to give captive dolphins something closer to the sea their ancestors once inhabited.

A sanctuary unlike a traditional dolphinarium

The San Paolo Dolphin Refuge is being developed near San Paolo Island in the Gulf of Taranto as a pioneering sea-based sanctuary for dolphins that cannot simply be released into the wild.

According to a report of CNN, the project is being led by marine biologist Carmelo Fanizza and the Jonian Dolphin Conservation, the organization he founded in 2009 to study and protect cetaceans in the region.

The idea addresses a difficult problem facing European marine parks. As countries move away from keeping dolphins and other cetaceans for entertainment, authorities must still decide what happens to animals that have spent much of their lives in captivity.

France's ban on cetacean shows has intensified that question, creating pressure to find appropriate homes for dolphins displaced from marine parks.

But simply opening a gate and releasing a captive dolphin into the ocean is not necessarily an act of conservation.

A dolphin that has spent years—or even its entire life—in a concrete enclosure may not know how to hunt effectively, avoid predators or navigate the challenges of the open sea.

That is where Taranto's proposed refuge comes in.

Instead of a concrete pool, the animals will live within a roughly seven-hectare area of the Gulf, enclosed and monitored while remaining part of the marine environment.

Fanizza has described the project as an ethical solution for animals that cannot safely return to the wild.

A high-tech home in the Gulf of Taranto

The refuge is designed to be much more than a large enclosure in the sea.

Monitoring buoys will continuously collect information about water and air quality, as well as underwater acoustic noise. The data will be transmitted to a control room at the Jonian Dolphin Conservation's headquarters in Taranto.

Underwater cameras will allow researchers to observe the dolphins, while an artificial intelligence system will help monitor environmental conditions and issue real-time alerts.

A floating cabin will provide accommodation and working space for staff, while a dedicated platform will allow veterinarians to care for the animals.

The first dolphins are expected to form a relatively small pilot group. Researchers will use the initial phase to understand how formerly captive animals behave in a marine sanctuary and to refine the methods needed to care for them.

There is another practical reality: some of these dolphins may never become independent hunters.

As per the CNN, at the JDC's Kètos center in Taranto's historic old town, a large refrigerator is planned for storing fish that can be provided to dolphins that are unable to forage for themselves after prolonged captivity.

The goal is not to recreate the wild perfectly. It is to create something that is significantly closer to it.

Why Taranto's waters matter

The choice of Taranto is not accidental.

The Gulf of Taranto is already home to wild dolphins, despite the city's complicated industrial past.

The region was heavily shaped by industry, including the enormous Ilva steelworks, but cetaceans have continued to inhabit the gulf.

Researchers working in the area have identified several cetacean species, including bottlenose, striped and common dolphins, as well as other whales and toothed whales.

One reason may lie beneath the surface.

The Taranto Valley is a huge submarine canyon that reaches depths of roughly 6,500 feet. Its unusual underwater geography helps create conditions capable of supporting a productive marine ecosystem.

Deep water interacts with warmer surface waters, helping circulate nutrients through the gulf. Those nutrients support phytoplankton, which supports the wider food web—including the fish and squid eaten by dolphins.

Researchers have also found intriguing genetic characteristics among striped dolphins in the Gulf of Taranto.

The findings have raised questions about whether today's dolphins could be genetically connected to populations that inhabited the same waters observed by ancient Greek settlers.

For marine biologists working in Taranto, the connection between the city's ancient past and its living dolphins is more than a romantic story.

It is a reason to protect what remains.

From industrial city to dolphin city

Taranto's transformation is particularly striking because its modern identity was once dominated by industry.

The city grew around its enormous industrial complex and became one of Italy's major centers of steel production. That development brought jobs and economic importance, but it also weakened the city's relationship with the surrounding sea.

Now local officials want to reverse some of that legacy.

Taranto's government is working toward establishing a marine protected area in the gulf, with the goal of strengthening research and introducing measures to reduce threats such as underwater noise and maritime traffic.

Mayor Rinaldo Melucci has described the effort as part of a broader attempt to reconnect Taranto with the sea.

The dolphin refuge fits directly into that vision.