Greece   /   Portugal   /   Turkey    /   Western Sahara

Research Continues for Natura 2000 Reserves

As part of the LIFE-NATURE programme of the European Commission, MOm – the Hellenic Society for the Study & Protection of the Monk Seal – has continued its research in four key target areas in Greece. These include the Cyclades islands of Milos, Kimolos and Polyaigos, the Dodecanese islands of Kasos and Karpathos, the Eastern Aegean Islands of Samos, Ikaria and Fourni, and the Ionian island of Zakynthos (specifically, its north-western coasts).

The creation of monk seal sanctuaries within these geographical areas has already received Greek government approval. Once finalised, they will become Natura 2000 reserves, a European Union initiative (Directive 92/43) to create a network of protected areas to preserve endangered habitats and species.

One of MOm’s main objectives during field work was to confirm the existence of reproducing monk seal populations within the target areas, thus enabling the organisation’s researchers to evaluate the importance of specific habitats and the status of monk seal populations.

Detailed studies carried out for a number of years by MOm’s research team within the wider region of the National Marine Park of Alonnisos-Northern Sporades (NMPANS) have provided evidence that the monk seal’s reproductive period exhibits a clear seasonal pattern. This period extends from August to November, while most births occur in the months of September and October. Therefore, additional emphasis was given to field activities during this period. Similarly, methodologies applied successfully in monitoring the monk seal population of the NMPANS, were also used in the LIFE Project’s target areas in order to survey seal shelters, identify individual animals, determine the age of newborn pups, and gather other relevant data.

Results obtained during the first year of field research proved substantial, particularly with regard to breeding. In total, nine births were recorded in the target areas, with indications for the existence of two additional pups. Specifically, seven newborn pups were recorded within the island complex of Milos, Kimolos and Polyaigos (a wider geographical area of the NATURA 2000 areas identified as GR 4220005 and GR 420006). One of these pups was found dead. A necropsy conducted on site indicated that the death was due to natural causes. The pups and their mothers were observed using seven different shelters within the target area. In addition, one newborn pup was observed within the island complex of Kasos and Karpathos (area GR 4210003), while there is also evidence for the existence of two more pups within the island complex of Samos, Ikaria and Fourni (areas GR 4120003 and GR 4120004). Furthermore, WWF-Greece’s research team, based on the Ionian island of Zakynthos (area GR 2210001), recorded the existence of a newborn pup in the end of August 1997.

To build upon accumulated knowledge, research in all target areas will continue for a second year.

MOm anticipates that these results will prove valuable during the design of management plans for the Natura 2000 reserves. A team of experts will be assembled to design specific management plans for each of the areas concerned. Developed in collaboration with local communities, these will include conservation measures tailored to the specific needs of each area, and also proposals for sustainable development opportunities.

Geographical Snapshot

Samos – Ikaria – Fourni

The island of Samos, with a surface area of 480 km² and 32,000 inhabitants, lies in the central Eastern Aegean, very close to the Turkish coast. Due to its geomorphology, the island has a great variety of habitats, with a respective high diversity of plant and animal species. Three sites, Mount Kerkis, Mount Ampelos and the Aliki wetland, have been included in the Natura 2000 Network, as they host endemic, rare and endangered species.

Ikaria is located west of Samos with an area of 255 km² and 7,500 inhabitants. The mountainous terrain of the island is cut by numerous gullies, while its coastline is characterised by steep shores. The natural environment is distinctive not only for its high biodiversity, but also for the presence of endemic and rare plants and invertebrates. Three biotopes, the river Chalaris, Mount Atheras and Fanari, are included in the Natura 2000 Network.

Fourni, situated between Ikaria and Samos, is formed by a group of 3 islands and numerous islets, with a total surface of 44 km² and an extremely indented coastline 126 km long. Apart from the presence of monk seals, the area is considered an important biotope for the endangered Aegean seagull, Larus audouini. The whole group of islands and the marine area surrounding them is included in the Natura 2000 Network. With 300 registered fishing boats – 135 of which are active – fishing is an important industry in Fourni.

Karpathos – Kasos

Karpathos, the second largest island of the Dodecanese, covers 300 km² and has 4,500 inhabitants. Two Natura 2000 sites have been designated on the island, one in central Karpathos and the other in the north, including the island of Saria. Apart from the existence of monk seal biotopes, the selection of these sites has been based on the presence of endemic and rare plants, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates.

South-west of Karpathos lies the island of Kasos, with an area of 66 km² and 1200 inhabitants. The whole island and the neighbouring islets of Kasonisia are included in the Natura 2000 Network, as the site is deemed important both for birds and monk seals. It should be mentioned, however, that extensive livestock raising, a major source of income for the local community, continues to cause severe degradation to the vegetation of the island.

Milos – Antimilos – Polyaigos

Owing to intense volcanic activity in the past, these islands have an extremely rich geological substrate, giving them great ecological, aesthetic and economic value. The only inhabited island, Milos, has a surface of 153 km² and 4320 inhabitants. A major part of western Milos, Antimilos and Polyaigos are included in the Natura 2000 Network, since they fulfil many of the selection criteria, such as the presence of the Mediterranean monk seal, the endemic viper Vipera lebetina schweizeri, and the endemic wild goat Capra aegagrus pictus.

Zakynthos

Zakynthos, one of the major islands of the Ionian Sea, covers an area of about 406 km², with a coastline stretching about 110 km. WWF Greece has been conducting monk seal conservation projects on the island since 1989. Detailed monitoring activities have revealed that the western coast of the island represents one of the most important habitats for the monk seal in Greece, with a population of at least 10 individuals. These appear to be reproducing on a annual basis, with an average birth rate of two pups per year.

WWF Greece has concluded that one of the most effective means of achieving in situ conservation of this species, would be the establishment of a protected area. As such, a section of the western coast of Zakynthos has been included in the Natura 2000 Network. The spatial pattern of cave use by monk seals, observed along this coast, provides important information on the location and geographical extent that such an area should occupy. ~ Vrassidas Zavras, MOm ~

Orphaned Pup Dies Despite Rescue Efforts

On Friday 19 December 1997, MOm was informed of the presence of a seal pup on Armenistis beach on the island of Ikaria. Local inhabitants reported the finding to the Port Police Authority of Evdilos, who then alerted MOm in Athens. MOm’s Rescue Team arrived in Ikaria at 4:00 am the following morning, and found the animal in a weak and emaciated physical condition. Although approximately two months old, it had only one third of the normal weight for its age. It was found to be suffering from malnutrition, dehydration and hypothermia. After providing first aid, the pup was transported to MOm’s Seal Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre in Alonissos, where it was treated by the organisation’s specialised staff, in collaboration with the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre of Pieterburen, and the Veterinary School of the University of Thessalonika. Unfortunately, despite great efforts to save its life, the pup died one week after admission due to an acute intestinal infection, aggravated by its extremely poor overall health, and its severe malnutrition. Following necropsy, samples were sent for analysis in order to determine the exact cause of the infection. ~ Vrassidas Zavras, MOm ~

Sporades Biological Station Finds New Lease on Life

The Biological Station at Gerakas Bay, on the Aegean island of Alonissos, has been regarded as an embarrassing white elephant almost since the day it was built with a generous helping of EC funds. Although designed ostensibly to serve scientific interests in the Sporades Marine Park, observers have always pondered why the architecture, both inside and out, seemed more reminiscent of a holiday villa than a working laboratory.

Since its completion in 1985, the Station has remained virtually unused, hosting only four official functions in 12 years, including its own opening ceremony. Now, at long last, the much-maligned building may be getting a new lease on life. Under a contract negotiated with the Hellenic Ministry of Environment, MOm has leased a sizeable portion of the Station for 10 years. The organisation will use the Station as a forward base for research and guarding activities in the core zone of the Park, and also plans to open a Marine Park exhibition centre at Gerakas.

Seitani Still in Doubt

Meanwhile, uncertainty still clouds the future of Seitani, the once-pristine stretch of coast on the Eastern Aegean island of Samos, that embroiled WWF International in a tense espionage controversy in 1979 (see William M. Johnson’s The Monk Seal Conspiracy, Heretic Books, London 1988, ISBN 0-946097-23-2). Although bulldozers, dynamite and bungalow-builders have all taken their toll on Seitani since its listing as a ‘Strictly-Protected’ area in 1980, a Presidential Decree issued in 1995 reinforced its legal status. As a result, all human activities in the core zone of the reserve became ‘strictly prohibited’. There are, however, several drawbacks to regulations governing the area. At present, the borders of the reserve reach only as far as the seashore, and therefore do not incorporate any marine areas. In addition, planning and construction permissions governing existing buildings cannot be revoked, thus placing the use of bungalows in the Seitani core zone in a kind of legal twilight zone. More recently, local authorities commissioned a management plan for the area, a study whose completion is expected in the next few months.

Monk Seal Coin Minted for Expo 98

A 100 escudos coin bearing the image of the Mediterranean monk seal has been issued by the Bank of Portugal to commemorate the international exhibition Expo 98. Worth approximately 50 cents in U.S. currency, the coin is legal tender in Portugal and is now in widespread circulation. With oceans and exploration as its central theme, Expo 98 is due to be held in Lisbon from May to September.

More Monachus Money

As part of a series on endangered wildlife, the Turkish mint issued a limited edition monk seal coin in 1996. In the forefront of the design, a single monk seal is pictured on a pebble shore, while two swimming seals look on from the background. Entitled Akdeniz Foku (Mediterranean seal) Monachus monachus, 5000 examples of the coin were minted, valued at one million Turkish liras each (approximately $6). The coin is still available from the Turkish Central Bank.

Henry Ford European Conservation Awards 98

The Foça Pilot Project, on Turkey’s central Aegean coast, was recently awarded first prize by a national jury for the 1998 Henry Ford European Conservation Awards. Although initially chosen as one of ten finalists from 200 Turkish applicants, the Underwater Research Society – Mediterranean Monk Seal Research Group (SAD-AFAG) project went on to clinch the top award, the organisation collecting a cheque for $10,000 in a prize-giving ceremony in Istanbul on 31 March.

The awards process now moves on to the international stage and final selection of award-winners from among 31 finalists from various countries. The Henry Ford European Conservation Awards will be announced in a ceremony held in Istanbul on 5 May. ~ Cem Kiraç, SAD-AFAG ~

STOP PRESS…The SAD-AFAG Foça Pilot Project has scooped first prize in the Henry Ford European Conservation Awards. The prestigious award, worth $50,000, was made in recognition of the Project’s various achievements. These included the closing-off the Foça SPA to industrial-scale fisheries, efficient guarding and surveillance activities over a three-year period, the involvement of the local authorities and artisanal fishers in the conservation process, a five-fold increase in seal sightings reported within the first four years of the project and, finally, plans to apply the lessons learnt in the Pilot Project to other monk seal habitats in the Aegean.

Decision-Makers Targeted

The WWF Across the Waters programme has announced funding support for the Seal-Info campaign of Turkey’s Mediterranean Monk Seal Research Group (AFAG). A booklet, currently under preparation, aims to help the governors and mayors of Turkey’s coastal states, towns and cities become better acquainted with the monk seal and its conservation. The publication will also highlight existing regulations governing the protection of the species and the marine environment – regulations that are often unenforced. Depending on the date of forthcoming elections, the project is slated for completion later this year or in spring 1999.

Seal Cave Search Underway

As a subsidiary of the Underwater Research Society (SAD), the Cave Diving Research Group (SAD-MADAG) has initiated a research programme along the Turkish coastline called Project DEMA. MADAG aims to help researchers of the Mediterranean Monk Seal Research Group (AFAG) locate seal caves whose access requires specialised diving skills and equipment. During the third phase of Project DEMA, SAD-MADAG worked in association with Dr. Ali Cemal Gücü of the Middle East Technical University’s Institute of Marine Science (METU-IMS) in the Cilician Basin, where Dr. Gücü and his team has been working for the conservation of monk seals since 1994. In the interests of monk seal welfare, cave entries will be kept to the minimum required to collect data and precise cave co-ordinates will remain confidential.

Risks to Foça Protected Area

Although hailed as a blueprint for the conservation of the monk seal in Turkey (see Henry Ford Conservation Awards 98, above), of late, the Foça Pilot Project appears to have stirred little interest among the national and municipal authorities. As a result, the Specially-Protected Area (SPA) has – despite vigorous lobbying efforts by SAD-AFAG – remained without a functioning patrol boat for almost two years now. Exploiting this legal vacuum, some fishers and tourist entrepreneurs have been able to flout the SPA regulations with apparent impunity.

At the Siren Rocks, in the core zone of the SPA, tour boats have frequently been observed sailing only a few metres from shore and important monk seal caves. Several fishers interviewed in Foça have indicated that infringements of the SPA regulations have increased dramatically since the patrol boat has been out of action. Adding insult to injury, in October last year, metal signs marking the entrance to the SPA and detailing restrictions, were found to have collapsed – one of them lying submerged in the sea close to a nearby beach.

Underlining the importance of enforcement, around the Mediterranean, monk seals have been extirpated from several reserve areas because of inadequate or non-existent guarding. So far, however, efforts to persuade the Turkish authorities that enforcement of SPA regulations might be a matter of life or death for the monk seal in Foça, have elicited no tangible response. This is despite the fact that the future survival of the species in the area is probably worth more to Foça – a town that was named after the seal more than 2000 years ago – than the relatively minor funding allocation required to repair or replace the patrol boat.

The SAD-AFAG Foça Pilot Project, the WWF-supported organisation leading conservation efforts in the area, had hoped to find sufficient resources to repair the patrol boat’s petrol engine, at a cost estimated at almost $10,000. A new replacement diesel engine – far more economical to run and maintain – would cost $22,000. The Foça Municipality has expressed a willingness to meet some of the costs, but an infusion of cash from the Ministry of Environment is regarded as vital if the patrol boat is ever to be reunited with the Aegean.

STOP PRESS… A recent turn of events at Foça may serve to illustrate how, given the right set of circumstances, an apparently insurmountable problem can be solved within a matter of minutes. No sooner had the Prime Minister of Turkey expressed his wish to visit Foça in May, than Ministry of Environment officials accepted the need to supply Foça with its new diesel patrol boat. This followed urgent appeals by SAD-AFAG and the Foça Municipality. Nothing, it seems, can quite focus the mind as much as a visiting dignitary.

Monk Seal Death in Foça

An adult female seal known to researchers as Disi Korsan was found dead near the Siren Rocks of Orak Island in the Foça SPA on 4^th April. The health and welfare of the animal had been a subject of concern for several years, due to the rope that was observed cutting deep into her head – most probably the result of entanglement in fishing gear. Illness in the seal had been observed by researchers since the middle of January. Upon retrieving the body, the animal was found to be so emaciated that the vertebrae were clearly visible.

Possibly due to partial decomposition, the rope that had once entangled the seal was no longer attached to the body. Despite heavy indentation, there was no obvious wound or infection. It is hoped that a cleaning of the skull will ascertain whether the rope caused a cranial deformation as the seal grew.

A locally-performed necropsy revealed severe loosening of teeth in the lower jaw and also some evidence of infection in certain tissues. Tissue samples are currently under viral, heavy metal and PCB analysis at Erasmus University, Holland, and the Marine Sciences Institute of the Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Although no specific external wounds were discovered, four shotgun pellets were found lodged in the head. ~ Yalçin Savas, SAD-AFAG Foça Pilot Project ~

Fishers Request Protected Areas

The Local Seal Committee of Foça has been enlarged in order to include representatives of the Municipality and Fisheries Cooperative of the neighbouring town of Yenifoça. Impressed by fisheries regulations that have banned industrial trawlers from traditional fishing grounds in the Foça SPA, the mayor and fishers of Yenifoça are now requesting that their region be incorporated into the protected area. Artisanal fishers in Foça believe that their catches have increased substantially since the creation of the monk seal sanctuary and a prohibition on industrial fishing methods.

Looming Extinction in the Black Sea

SAD-AFAG’s monk seal survey along the Turkish Black Sea coast, sponsored by UNDP-GEF (United Nations Development Program - Global Environment Facility), was completed in December 1997. The final report, currently under preparation, concludes that monk seals are nearing extinction in the region, with only 2-3 individuals continuing to survive between Yakakent and Bartin.

Research was conducted along a 900 km stretch of coast between the town of Besikduzu (Trabzon) in the east and Akcakoca (Bolu) in the west using a four-wheel-drive vehicle. In addition, 14 volunteer observers (including 6 SAD members) were posted in three potentially promising locations along the coast, but yielded no monk seal sightings over a 7-day period. Cave diving expeditions between Sinop (in the east) and Eregli (in the west) resulted in the discovery of 49 sea caves or caverns, of which around 20 were judged suitable as seal shelters and for breeding. Additional information was gathered through public awareness activities among fishers and other coastal inhabitants.

Results of the survey tend to match the findings of a 1996 AFAG study focusing on the status of the monk seal in the Eregli region, in the Western Black Sea of Turkey (Kiraç, C., and Y. Savas. 1996. Status of the Monk Seal (Monachus monachus) in the neighbourhood of Eregli, Black Sea Coast of Turkey. Zoology in the Middle East. 12. pp. 5-12.)

Factors implicated in the historical decline of the ‘sea bear’ or ‘bear fish’ – as the species is known locally in the Turkish Black Sea – include: 1) Exploitation for blubber and skins by dolphin hunters 2) Live capture for fairs and zoos, and 3) deliberate killing by artisanal fishers due to net damage.

In contrast to other coastal areas of Turkey, habitat destruction and tourism appears to have played no significant role in the extinction of the monk seal in the Turkish Black Sea. ~ Cem Kiraç, SAD/AFAG ~

Report Apportions Blame for Western Sahara Controversy

Chris Huxley, co-author of the EC evaluation study (see International News), received another monk seal commission in October 1997, when the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre (SRRC) in the Netherlands requested him to investigate the controversy surrounding the mass die-off in the Western Sahara. Although doubts have been expressed in some quarters about the impartiality of the report – in view of the organisation commissioning it – Huxley generally succeeds in taking a dispassionate and even-handed approach to the problem, recording a specific timetable of events, analysing the motives and actions of the parties concerned, and producing a set of recommendations to improve the management and effectiveness of SRRC operations in Mauritania. While many serious allegations against the SRRC were criticised as being profoundly negative and contrary to observable facts (including deliberate and belligerent obstruction of the emergency action plan, manipulation of the Mauritanian fisheries research centre, the CNROP, and technical incompetence in monk seal rescue and rehabilitation efforts), the organisation was presented with a list of its own perceived shortcomings.

The SRRC was encouraged to accept that the primary cause of the mass mortality could not be conclusively attributed to a virus (as it has so adamantly maintained). Addressing criticism of its technical expertise, the organisation was advised to "urgently pursue the completion and publication of a technical manual on seal rehabilitation. The current lack in this respect is a major handicap…" Realising that conservation efforts in the already-difficult Mauritanian environment demand cooperation between all parties concerned, the SRRC was also encouraged to seek some form of arbitration in an effort to achieve reconciliation between the agencies and individuals concerned.

Publication: Huxley C. 1997. Evaluation of the Role, Activities and Performance of the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre (Pieterburen) in Relation to the 1997 Monk Seal Mortality.

To obtain a full copy of the report, write to: Seal Rehabilitation & Research Centre, Hoofdstraat 94a, NL-9968 AG Pieterburen. E-mail: srrcnl@pi.net.