The Strictly Protected Areas of the Danube Delta

Most of the Danube Delta is open water you can travel freely by boat. Twenty places are not. They are the strictly protected areas of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve: the last undisturbed samples of the landscape, where the pelican colonies breed, where the old forests grow on sand and where the lagoons are left to the birds. This is what each of them protects, and which ones you can see.

What “strictly protected” means

The Danube Delta carries several labels, and they are often confused. It is a biosphere reserve under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere programme, a natural World Heritage Site and a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. In Romanian law, the reserve is divided into three kinds of zones: strictly protected areas, buffer zones around them, and economic zones where people live, fish and farm.

The strictly protected areas are the core. There are 20 of them, covering about 50,900 hectares, just under one tenth of the reserve. Eighteen were set by law; the last two are scientific reserves drawn around two small islands in Lake Sinoie that hold the Dalmatian pelican colonies.

The rule is simple: unless we say otherwise below, entry is forbidden, by boat, on foot, by car and by drone. A few areas can be seen from the boat or walked on a marked trail; we say which at each one. The panels at the edge of each area mark the limit.

The north of the Danube Delta

Roșca Buhaiova (9,625 ha)

A maze of lakes, channels and floating reed islands north of Lake Merhei, between Chilia Veche and Periprava. It holds the largest breeding colony of great white pelicans in Europe, mixed heron colonies, otters, minks and raccoon dogs. In the clearer, nutrient poor water you can still find carnivorous plants such as bladderwort and the waterwheel plant. This colony is the reason the area exists, and the reason it stays closed.

Visiting: closed. The threats are reed fires set in autumn and spring, small aircraft flying low over the colony in the breeding season, and people who enter it for photographs. A pelican colony disturbed even once in the breeding season can lose its chicks to gulls within minutes. You do not need to go in: the pelicans feed every day on the open lakes of the Danube Delta, where we see them from the boat.

Letea Forest (2,825 ha)

An oak and ash forest that grows in long strips between the sand dunes of the Letea ridge, one of the oldest parts of the Danube Delta. It was placed under protection in 1930, among the first protected places in Romania. Climbing plants hang from the trees and give it an almost subtropical look. White tailed eagles nest here, and the forest is home to the free roaming horses of Letea: domestic horses left loose after the collective farms closed, not a wild breed.

Visiting: only on the marked tourist trail. No smoking, no climbing on trees or lianas, no picking plants and no loud noise. Quad bikes and careless visitors have scarred the dunes in the past; the trail is there so that the rest of the forest is left alone.

Lake Răducu (2,500 ha)

Freshwater lakes between the Chilia and Sulina branches, surrounded by sandy ridges, steppe grassland and land that floods only for part of the year. Isolated from the main channels, Răducu and Răduculeț are a safe place for tench, catfish, carp and perch to breed. Visiting: closed.

The centre of the Danube Delta

Lake Nebunu (115 ha)

A small lake in the Șontea Furtuna complex, north of the Șontea channel, typical of the inner Danube Delta and of the way its life follows the rise and fall of the Danube. Ducks nest here in summer and young fish grow in the shallow water. Visiting: closed. In spring, when the water is high, some boats cut through it; ours do not.

Caraorman Forest (2,250 ha)

The central part of the Caraorman ridge, with wide fields of bare sand dunes and a forest of oak, ash and poplar. At its southern end grow oaks more than 400 years old. Visiting: only on the marked trail, with the same rules as at Letea.

Lake Potcoava (652 ha)

Between Lake Gorgova and the Sulina branch, around the Babinți lakes and Lake Potcoava. It holds a mixed colony of herons, egrets, glossy ibises and pygmy cormorants, and breeding little bitterns, bitterns, red crested pochards, red necked grebes and white tailed eagles. Visiting: closed.

The south and the Sfântu Gheorghe branch

Vătafu Lunguleț (1,625 ha)

Lakes, sandy ridges and salty meadows in the Roșu Puiu lake complex, where fresh and salt water meet. It is an important breeding place for little bitterns and pygmy cormorants in mixed colonies, and it protects some of the best salt grassland in the Danube Delta. Visiting: closed.

Erenciuc alder wood (50 ha)

The smallest strictly protected area, on both sides of the channel that leads from the Sfântu Gheorghe branch to Lake Erenciuc. It is the only place in the Danube Delta where black alder grows as a real wood. There are far fewer alders today than when the area was created; tree cutting and fires are the reason. Visiting: from the boat only; landing is forbidden.

Lake Belciug (110 ha)

A deep lake, about 7 metres, in the last big meander of the Sfântu Gheorghe branch. Its isolation keeps rare native fish such as crucian carp, tench and ide, and herons and egrets feed along its edges. Visiting: closed.

Sacalin Zătoane (21,410 ha)

The largest strictly protected area: the south of Dranov island, the lakes Zătonul Mare and Zătonul Mic that the sea keeps widening, and the lagoon behind the sandbar islands of Sacalin. Mute swans breed on the lakes, shorebirds feed on the mudflats, and Sacalin island holds a large colony of Sandwich terns. In spring and autumn this coast is one of the best places in the Danube Delta for migrating birds. Cattle grazing on Sacalin tramples the nests of the birds that breed on the ground.

Visiting: part of the lagoon can be seen by boat from Sfântu Gheorghe. Landing on the shore is forbidden.

Around Tulcea

Lake Rotundu (228 ha)

A floodplain lake in the Somova Parcheș complex, west of Tulcea. This complex is the last stretch of Danube floodplain of its kind that was never embanked, and the lake is a breeding ground for carp and their relatives. Visiting: closed.

Sărături Murighiol (87 ha)

A salt lake on the Danube terrace between Murighiol and Plopu, about 2 km long. Black winged stilts, pied avocets, terns, gulls and black necked grebes breed here, and in winter the salty water freezes late, so geese gather in numbers. Until 2019 there was also a Mediterranean gull colony; in the drought of 2019 and 2020 the water dropped, the nesting island joined the shore and the colony was lost. A nearby rubbish dump, farm chemicals washing in from the hills, shepherd dogs on the shore and photographers who come too close are the other threats.

Visiting: on foot only, quietly, with no sudden movements. Cars at the water’s edge are forbidden.

The Razim and Sinoie lagoons

Popina island (98 ha)

A rocky island 47 m high in the north of Lake Razim, near Iazurile, a fragment of the old continental shore. It was a nesting place for common shelducks until cattle were brought to graze; today none nest here. In spring it is a stopping place for migrants, and its invertebrates are still little studied. Visiting: closed.

Periteasca Leahova (4,125 ha)

Low sandy ridges and shallow lakes between Lake Razim and the sea, slowly turning less salty since the Portița mouth closed. It is a feeding and resting place for common shelducks, red breasted and greater white fronted geese, lesser white fronted geese and both pelican species, with rare coastal plants such as sea kale. Visiting: closed.

Cape Doloșman (125 ha)

The tip of the Doloșman promontory near Jurilovca, with the ruins of the Greek and Roman fortress of Argamum and the cliffs above Lake Razim. Pied wheatears, stone curlews, calandra larks and Eurasian crag martins breed here, the marbled polecat lives on the steppe, and the grassland holds rare plants. Visiting: on foot, quietly, without disturbing birds or animals.

Grindul Lupilor (2,075 ha)

A low sandy ridge between Lake Sinoie and the lakes Zmeica and Golovița. In autumn it gathers huge numbers of migrating and wintering geese and ducks, and its shallow water is a spawning ground for carp, zander and bream. Pressure to build here, poaching and summer campers are the threats. Visiting: closed.

Istria Sinoie (400 ha)

The promontory of green schist where the ancient city of Histria stands, founded by Greek colonists from Miletus in the 7th century BC, and part of the Saele ridge. Shelducks, ducks and geese feed on the shore. Visiting: the archaeological site of Histria is open to visitors; the shore and the ridge are not.

Grindul Chituc (2,300 ha)

The sandbar between Lake Sinoie and the Black Sea, a fan of dunes, ridges and small lakes. It matters for migrating and wintering birds, and it is threatened by building and by people who drive in and camp in the wildest parts. Visiting: closed; there is a barrier on the access road.

Ceaplace island (117 ha)

A small atoll shaped island in the north of Lake Sinoie and the water around it. It holds one of only two Dalmatian pelican colonies in Romania; the Dalmatian pelican is a globally threatened species. Great white pelicans and other waterbirds rest here too. Visiting: closed, on the island and on the water around it.

Prundu islands (187 ha)

Two small islands near the southwestern shore of Lake Sinoie, with a mixed colony of Eurasian spoonbills and Dalmatian pelicans, and a resting place for great white pelicans. Visiting: closed, on the islands and on the water around them.

Seeing them the right way

Almost everything these areas protect can be seen without entering them. Pelicans, herons, glossy ibises and pygmy cormorants feed every day on the open lakes and channels; white tailed eagles hunt over the whole Danube Delta. On the water we keep our distance from colonies, never fly drones over breeding birds and never push birds into flight for a photograph. Our boats stay outside the closed areas, and so do our guides when they are not working.

If you see someone entering a closed area, take note of the place and the boat, and tell the reserve administration. The rules only work if visitors know them.