“The Divjake-Karavasta National Park recorded a high number of visitors, including a large group of German visitors and biologists interested in the park’s flora and fauna,” regional directorate of the protected areas in Fier said on Wednesday.

Divjake-Karavasta National Park is an important tourist destination and home to 242 of Albania’s 330 native bird species. The most notable is the rare Dalmatian pelican, the largest bird in Europe.

Large flocks of white storks, flamingos, cattle egrets, little egrets, hoopoes, yellow-egged gulls, yellow wagtails, woodchat shrikes, bee-eaters, oystercatchers, Kentish plovers and more are found in the area.

The park covers an area of 22,230 ha and is home to forests with typical flowers, lagoons, agricultural land, and sand dunes, as well as unproductive land. The Karavasta Lagoon, has been declared an Emerald Site under the Bern Convention in 2008, an Important Bird Area (IBA), and a Wetland of International Importance (Ramsar Site) since 1994.

Karavasta Lagoon, Albania’s largest wetland on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea and a main bird-watching and wildlife tours increasingly drawing international tourist and nature lovers’ attention after the government ban on hunting.

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