MONACHUS IN MONACO

William M. Johnson

 

"Il vit encore, monsieur?"

In January the monk seal conservation community found itself in strangely opulent surroundings. Greeted by blossoming mimosa, brilliant sunshine and other favourable signs of global warming, some 1300 scientists and students descended upon the principality of Monaco to attend the World Marine Mammal Science Conference. Of these, a 70-strong contingent registered for the Workshop on the Biology and Conservation of the World’s Endangered Monk Seals.

For frontline conservation projects so accustomed to financial deprivation, the change in scenery was probably more akin to entering a different dimension than entering a different country. Back home, some were begging for patrol boats to guard their fragile Monachus reserves, and if Monaco seemed supremely indifferent to their plight, it could hardly be accused of hiding away the latest fashions in ocean-going hardware. Rather like an upmarket version of the London Boat Show, the conference centre offered a tantalising panorama of the Monte-Carlo marina, brimming with the gleaming yachts of the Rich and Famous.

The same projects may have been desperate for a second-hand car or van, a humble enough wish that can’t have been helped by the sight of so many blood-red Ferraris, jet-black Porsches and platinum Rolls Royces cruising the streets. Nor, for that matter, could sneaking a curious glance or two into Monte-Carlo’s famous Casinos, where the entire worldwide budget for monk seals can be lost within the space of a few minutes on the blackjack tables.

Even the normally demure Encyclopaedia Britannica doesn’t mince its words about Monaco’s obsession with money, stating that its gambling centre has "made Monte-Carlo an international byword for the extravagant display and reckless dispersal of wealth." If anyone had hoped that the monk seal would benefit from such squandermania, however, they were destined to be disappointed.

Not that the guardians of monk seals were consigned to some shabby conference hall on the outskirts of town. On the contrary, they found themselves ensconced in the seafront Hotel Loews, a deluxe resort of marble floors and burnished gold ceilings, where breakfast can set you back $40, a single cup of coffee, $5, and dinner probably somewhere in the region of the credit limit on a Mastercard.

And so it was that Monachus – after being talked about in so many of the world’s romantic hotspots, now found itself in the land of bilk and money.

What the Monaco police must have made of so many marine mammalogists thronging the streets is anyone’s guess. Presumably they had been forewarned that sartorial elegance would not be the most prominent feature of the sudden invasion. As far as we know, there were no reported incidents of officers accosting those intrepid researchers who looked as if they’d just emerged from the most untamed habitats on Earth. They should count themselves lucky. Under more normal circumstances, those failing to produce cash, credit cards or traveller’s cheques for inspection would probably have been judged insolvent and promptly escorted to the border.

A meeting held in May would have offered the entertaining distraction of the Monaco Grand Prix, the Loews itself being ideally situated to watch Formula 1 pilots desperately trying to negotiate the Casino hairpin without ending up in the hotel lobby. But Monaco in January did offer other spectacles.

His Serene Highness Prince Rainier III opened the WMMSC proceedings with a speech that recalled the exploratory adventures of his great-grandfather, Prince Albert I. Albert’s passion for oceanography, we were told, had established a tradition and had brought about Monaco’s unswerving commitment to the conservation of the marine environment.

Some of those golden traditions could be found on display in the Oceanographic Museum, including Albert’s grappling hooks and whaling harpoons, upon whose lethal barbs the Prince’s name is still etched. Prince Rainier himself was perhaps too modest to recall his own contributions to marine science, the results of which we stumbled upon in his great-grandfather’s Museum.

Here, behind the smudged glass of a display cabinet, lie the stuffed, somewhat moth-eaten remains of two Mediterranean monk seals, an adult female and her pup. In September 1947, Prince Rainier and his hunting party ventured into a narrow cave in Corsica, and encountered the large (allegedly 3.5m) pregnant female sleeping on a rocky beach. Woken by the advancing men, the seal made a threatening movement to defend itself, obliging the Prince to pump two bullets into the animal "in self-defence". Three hours later, after recovering the body and bringing it aboard ship, a caesarean section was performed to remove a full-term foetus. The pup, which may have been only hours away from birth, was found to be still living, but in asphyxia. Prolonged attempts to resuscitate the animal proved in vain, and the two dead trophies were eventually consigned to the Oceanographic Museum (Troitzky 1953).

The snarling, ferocious beast that must have confronted Prince Rainier and his hunting friends was then preserved for posterity, a testament perhaps to the talents of the Royal taxidermist.

As we stared into the display cabinet, a little boy passed by, and paused to ask: "Il vit encore, monsieur?" We stumbled for words, not entirely sure whether the child was being sardonic beyond his years or whether he was in for a rude awakening.

As he addressed the conference, the remarkably reinvented Prince Rainier called upon the assembled participants to resist the pressures of government and industry for the sake of science. There is, he reminded his avid listeners, only one scientific truth. If this was the golden rule to which all scientists must aspire, one might be forgiven for failing to detect it in the Monk Seal Workshop, where there appeared to be more opinions posing as unalterable truths than you could shake a stick at.

Arguments raged between population biologists, toxicologists and virologists over the 1997 die-off in the Western Sahara, estimated to have wiped out two-thirds of the monk seal population on the Côte des Phoques. An atmosphere charged with suspicion and barely-concealed hostility may have proved illuminating to students embarking on their scientific careers, but was hardly conducive to sifting out those precious grains of scientific truth. More often than not, presentation of supposedly objective data was punctuated with scathing accusations against rival theories and personalities. Rehabilitation of seals orphaned during the die-off, it was alleged, was less than competent; the Mauritanian fisheries research centre (the CNROP) had sided with the virus theory only to prevent a damaging embargo on Mauritanian fish exports. Conversely, those driving the toxic algae theory were accused of arrogant colonialism in their treatment of their Mauritanian counterparts, and of simply not having the intellectual wherewithal to comprehend the unpredictable behaviour of the deadly morbillivirus.

To outsiders sitting in on these sessions, confronted by clashing personalities and ambitions, it must have seemed somewhat ironic that the very people setting out to "manage monk seal populations" were evidently having so much trouble managing their own affairs.

Regrettably, the conclusions of a December 1997 Workshop held in Amsterdam had little effect in encouraging the two sides to take a more dispassionate stance – basically to agree to disagree until further evidence becomes available. The Amsterdam Workshop concluded that, although no firm conclusions could be drawn one way or the other from available data, a preponderance of evidence pointed to toxic algae as being the most likely culprit in the die-off (Harwood et al. 1998).

Such glaring schisms allowed the Hawaiian contingent to bask in apparent unanimity, and yet a forthcoming book chapter (Lavigne, in press) paints a rather different picture of conservation efforts in the remote Leeward Islands. Attempting to pinpoint reasons for the Hawaiian monk seal’s continuing decline, the chapter presents evidence suggesting that the survival of Monachus schauinslandi is being jeopardised by a ponderous and Byzantine bureaucracy and by chronic inter-agency rivalry among the plethora of government departments responsible for "management" of the species. It also suggests that scientific candour – particularly where sensitive economic issues are involved – may be compromised by political expedience.

Such explanations may serve to explain why references to entanglement of Hawaiian monk seals in "fishing gear" can be mysteriously replaced under bureaucratic review by the more innocuous-sounding term "marine debris". Indeed, during a notable Workshop Q & A session, one scientist maintained that there was only "anecdotal evidence" of fisheries impacts on Monachus schauinslandi – a myth that is destined to suffer some serious debunking in the aforementioned chapter.

While the virus versus algae debate may have taken centre stage at the Workshop, other divisions were also much in evidence, particularly between those advocating in situ conservation and those demanding a "more aggressive" intervention in the form of captive breeding and translocation.

In this respect, an eerie sense of déjà vu seemed to infest the proceedings. While rumours of a third attempt by Antibes Marineland to acquire Mediterranean monk seals were being hotly denied, the cause of Hawaiian monk seal captive breeding was being enthusiastically advanced in the auditorium. "We have the technology," one speaker reminded the participants, as though space-age technology could somehow invent that elusive magic bullet that would solve all of the numerous threats confronting the species.

In seeking to justify such ex situ schemes, more than one speaker lamented that "despite all of our great efforts, monk seal populations continue to decline…" This too was an echo of the past, a kind of mantra that was used to justify the ill-fated Antibes Marineland captive breeding scheme, and more recently, the monk seal (and possibly morbillivirus) translocation scheme to the Canary Islands. But what "great efforts" might they be referring to? Surely not to the $2 million price tag of translocation research in Mauritania/Western Sahara, where two seals were accidentally killed during capture for satellite tagging in 1996? Not to the Hawaiian translocation project, that ended up leaving eleven animals blinded by another mystery virus at the Waikiki Aquarium? And surely not to the electro-ejaculation experiments at the Kewalo Research Facility of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu, that killed two adult male seals in the summer of 1995?

Those who are fondest of trotting out the "great effort" cliché neglect to mention that where in situ conservation is being implemented effectively – in other words, where there are strictly protected areas, guards and patrol boats – monk seals appear to be staging a recovery.

A case in point is Madeira where nature managers have yet to rule the roost, and where barging into caves with flashlights, cameras, hypodermic syringes, satellite tags, radio transmitters and all the other paraphernalia of the enthusiastic field researcher is strictly prohibited. Instead, monitoring is achieved by purely non-invasive means, mainly by the decidedly low-tech method of posting observers at look-out points along the islands’ rugged coasts.

As a consequence of this deliberate hands-off approach, Madeira has seen its monk seal population grow from 5-6 individuals when the Desertas Islands Nature Reserve was established in May 1990, to 19 today. Seals are even beginning to repopulate Madeira itself, particularly the wild and inaccessible São Lorenço peninsula, eleven nautical miles from the Desertas. In what was undoubtedly the most uplifting episode in an otherwise lacklustre meeting, spectacular video footage presented by National Parks Director Henrique Costa Neves, showed mothers and pups returning to open beaches on the Desertas.

It is all the more puzzling then that a recent evaluation report compiled for the Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection Directorate of the European Commission (DG XI) notes that "non-invasive [monitoring] techniques… have not provided precise information", and goes on to recommend that this be remedied post-haste (Watson & Huxley 1997). Apparently we are to assume that disturbance in the name of science be viewed somewhat differently to disturbance caused by other factors.

Intriguingly, the same puzzling equation – of less disturbance equalling more seals – appears to hold true in Hawaii as well. David Lavigne, in his aforementioned book chapter (Lavigne, in press), states that despite 20 years’ of management under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, "full and permanent protection of the Hawaiian monk seal and its habitats has yet to be secured." Today, he continues, "the only breeding subpopulations that currently are increasing are ones where human impacts are unknown (Pearl and Hermes Reef) or where they have been mitigated and reduced to a minimum (Kure Atoll)."

Meanwhile, back in the auditorium, the Workshop was embarking on its winding-up round-table discussion, made somewhat awkward by the absence of this essential piece of furniture. Up on stage, the chairs of the various sessions had been assigned the daunting task of drawing up their report to the conference, and a set of recommendations. Despite a tangible desperation for answers, little appeared to spring to mind until the issue was opened up to the floor.

One participant ventured that "perhaps we need meetings on a more regular basis." This was enough to send one veteran scientist bounding out of his chair to remind his younger colleagues that if there was anything that the monk seal did not need, it was more meetings and conferences. What was needed, he continued, was the practical application of resolutions and firm government commitment to their implementation.

Common sense, however, was having a bad day. In the end, largely because of bitter rivalry between opposing camps, the Workshop not only failed to agree on a set of recommendations for the conservation of Monachus, but even failed to achieve a consensus summary of what had occurred during the meeting. As one participant privately declared, perhaps it would have been easier just to photocopy the resolutions of the 1978 Rhodes Conference.

References

Harwood, J., D. Lavigne, and P. Reijnders. 1998. Workshop on the causes and consequences of the 1997 mass mortality of Mediterranean monk seals in the western Sahara. Amsterdam, 11-14 December 1997. IBN Scientific Contributions. 11. International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW); Institute for Forestry and Nature Research (IBN-DLO), Wageningen, the Netherlands. pp. 32.

Lavigne, D.M. The Hawaiian Monk Seal: Management of an endangered species. In J. Twiss and R. Reeves (eds.) Marine Mammals, Vol. II. Smithsonian Institution Press. In press.

Troitzky, A. 1953. Contribution à l’étude des Pinnipèdes à propos de deux phoques de la Méditerranée ramenés de croisière par S.A.S. le Prince Rainier III de Monaco. Bulletin de l’Institut Océanographique. No. 1032:15 Septembre 1953. pp. 33.

Watson, J. P. and C. Huxley. 1997. Evaluation of the Actions Taken to Protect the Mediterranean Monk Seal. Final Report. Contract Number: B4-3040/96/000408/MAR/D2. 28 June 1997. Final Report for DG XI of the European Commission, submitted by John P Watson (The Evaluation Partnership) and Chris Huxley (Fauna and Flora International), pp. 15 (Executive Summary).