He Sendaviva Adventure and Fun Park in Navarre has become throughout his twenty years of life a ally of biodiversity. Thus, not only does it serve as a refuge for part of the outdoor wildlifebut also improves the reproduction of certain species in its environmentThis is the main conclusion reached by the “ZooNaGreen” project, financed and coordinated by the park itself in collaboration with the Aranzadi Scientific Society, the University of Navarra and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), after a scientific research which was carried out in 2023 and 2024.
The aim of this project was to verify whether Sendaviva allows responsible coexistence with the region’s wildlifeby creating an enclosure in which the fauna and flora are respected, cared for and enhanced by planting, maintaining vegetation and creating water points. To do this, from April 2023 to July of the same year, the wild species found in the park and its surroundings were analyzed.
Divided into four working groups coordinated by Efrén Fernández, project coordinator of the Sendaviva Environment Department, the “ZooNaGreen” project carried out a great sampling effort. Throughout the project, 30 chromatic attraction traps were used to pollinating insectswith which nearly 6,000 arthropods were captured. In turn, the population of nesting birds was analyzed, detecting 74 different species. In addition, thirty phototrapping cameras were placed for six months, which allowed 9,606 images of wild mesomammals and finally, 576 night traps were installed in four plots which could potentially present, or which had presented in the recent past, a plant cover compatible with the presence of stable populations of micromammals.
The Scientific Society of Aranzadi has carried out the inventory of insects and pollinating birds inside and outside the parkResearchers Beatriz Díaz and Alberto de Castro analyzed the group of pollinating insects, while Xabier Esparza and Juan Arizaga were in charge of the ornithological study.
As for the birdsThe study was carried out over an area of approximately 25km2in which 90 transects of 200 meters long and with a strip width of 150 meters on each side were sampled.
In this way, 1,887 contacts were obtained concerning 74 species totaling 2,866 individualsso the Department of Ornithology of the entity concluded that Sendaviva generates breeding opportunities for waterfowl species or linked to aquatic, fluvial habitats – thanks to its lake – and to anthropized habitats – those modified by man. This, from the point of view of avifauna, contributes to increasing the heterogeneity of habitats in the study region.
Likewise, regarding the pollinating insects30 colour attraction traps were used to study bees and flower flies, as they are the most important pollinators in the region.
Thus, Aranzadi’s researchers stressed that the analyses do not show significant differences in terms of abundance or species richness. species and individuals of bees and hoverfliessince a similar number of both were recorded outside and inside the park (21 morphospecies of bees inside and 23 outside the park; seven morphospecies of hoverflies inside and five outside the park). For this reason, the Navarrese Sendaviva Park does not harm the diversity of the insects analyzed.
Mesomammals and micromammals in Sendaviva
On the other hand, David Galicia, a researcher at the Institute of Biodiversity and Environment -BIOMA- of the University of Navarra, sampled four plots that could have, or have had in the recent past, a plant cover compatible with stable populations of micromammals, mainly field mice. In this group, it should be noted that captures and recaptures were very high inside the park and no captures were obtained outside.
These data provide very precise estimates of the total number of individuals, showing quite high values compared to what has been recorded in other works in the Iberian Peninsula, surely due to the dense vegetation cover available. Sendaviva.
Finally, Jabi Zabala, from the Department of Zoology and Animal Cellular Biology of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), installed 30 camera traps in the pine forest areas, with the aim of capturing images of medium wild mammals.
In this way, 9,547 images were obtained, of which 1,588 were taken outside Sendaviva and 7,959 inside the park enclosure and which managed to detect up to seven species of wild mammalsincluding two (the mountain cat and the marten) were only seen inside the park and two others (the deer and the wild boar) outside – probably due to the physical barrier created by the perimeter fence of Sendaviva—.
This suggests that Sendaviva serves as a refuge and reservoir for foreign populations since, especially in the months of wintermesomammals make more intense use of the enclosure Sendaviva than from the outside.
All this shows that the activity of Sendaviva has managed to coexist responsibly with the region’s wildlifenot influencing certain groups (such as pollinators), but increasing the use of their space by micromammals and mesomammals that can cross the perimeter fence, probably benefiting from the plant cover and the greater presence of natural food, and providing, with its infrastructure, a place of refuge for nesting birds linked to anthropized, aquatic and fluvial habitats to the detriment of certain steppe birds.
