Kuş Cenneti

Kuşcenneti National Park was declared on 27 July 1959 in Balıkesir province, at the north-eastern end of Lake Manyas, or Kuş Gölü, between the towns of Manyas, Gönen and Bandırma. It was one of the first national parks in Turkey, after Yozgat Çamlığı, declared in February 1958.

Its value is ornithological. Lake Manyas is a eutrophic body of water whose level varies with the season, lying on the migration route that connects Anatolia with Europe, and the park is home to around 266 bird species: some sixty-six present regularly, a score that breed in some years and more than a hundred and seventy that only stop on passage. The wetland is one of the country's most important breeding and wintering areas for waterbirds, with colonies of Dalmatian pelican, herons, pygmy cormorants and spoonbills.

The site was made known by Professor Curt Kosswig, of the University of Istanbul, who discovered it in 1939 with his wife Leonore and gave it the name Kuşcenneti, bird paradise; in 1952 a research station of the Institute of Hydrobiology was set up there. The Council of Europe awarded it the class A European Diploma in 1975 for its ornithological richness and its management, renewed in 1981, 1986, 1991 and 1996, suspended in 2004 and returned in 2006. It is also a Ramsar site.