The Monachus-Guardian — Headlines-News-Articles — 2008-2018
Dedicated to Monk Seals and their Threatened Habitats
Endangered seal swims to Israel from Lebanon to hunt some fish; photographs reveal that this is the third visit by the same seal since 2010.
Israeli naval lookouts spotted something unusual on Monday off the coast at Rosh HaNikra – a highly endangered Mediterranean monk seal, which has become a rare sight in local waters. [More]
Chandler, W., E. Douce, K. Shugart-Schmidt, T. Watson, M. Sproat, F. Rosenstiel, K. Yentes, X. Escovar-Fadul, and T. Laubenstein. 2015. Enhancing the future of the Hawaiian monk seal: recommendations for the NOAA recovery program. Marine Conservation Institute. Seattle, WA: 1-80. [PDF 4.3MB]
Executive Summary
Marine Conservation Institute undertook this report on the Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Program for the purpose of enhancing the conservation prospects of one of the world’s most endangered pinnipeds. The Hawaiian monk seal (Neomonachus schauinslandi), whose estimated population now hovers between 900 and 1,100 animals, has suffered a 60-year decline despite the efforts of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and others to reverse it. Although some may view the seal’s fate as hopeless, it is not. Despite difficult circumstances, NMFS and its partners have made progress on several fronts to slow the seal’s decline. Encouragingly, NMFS estimates that up to 32 per cent of all seals living in 2012 were alive because of hundreds of interventions taken by the agency over many years to enhance the survival of individual seals at risk. Continue reading “Enhancing the future of the Hawaiian monk seal: recommendations for the NOAA recovery program”
On Saturday the 15th of November, MOm’s Rescue Team was informed by Mrs Niki Lemoni, member of the Veterinary Network of ARION, Cetacean Rescue & Rehabilitation Research Center, that a newborn female Mediterranean monk seal was stranded orphaned in Velanio beach at Skopelos, Northern Sporades.
Continue reading “Rescue of an orphaned monk seal pup on Skopelos”
Özgür Emek Inanmaza, Özgür Değirmenci and Ali Cemal Gücü. 2014. A new sighting of the Mediterranean Monk Seal, Monachus monachus (Hermann, 1779), in the Marmara Sea (Turkey). Zoology in the Middle East, 60 (3): 278-280. DOI:10.1080/09397140.2014.944438
[…] In total six caves displaying Monk Seal resting/breeding characteristics (see Karamanlidis, Pires, Silva, & Neves, 2004; Gucu, Gucu, & Orek, 2004) were discovered. There was clear evidence in one of those cases, namely the peculiar odour and tracks on the inner sandy beach, and this indicated the recent presence of a seal in the cave. The cave had a surface opening with an inner area and a platform formed by sand, pebbles and large boulders. During the surveys, seals were sighted at four different occasions on 21 April, 27-30 May and 14 June 2014, and were recorded on a video. […]
MOm. 2014. 1st annual conservation status report of the Mediterranean monk seal population at the island of Gyaros. 1-30. [PDF 1.5MB]
[…] Annual pup productivity
The minimum mean annual number of births (n = 7.75) recorded at the island of Gyaros is one of the highest recorded for the species in the Mediterranean Sea and could be higher if systematic assessments of natality were conducted throughout the breeding season at each site in the years 2004 – 2011. Systematic surveys of annual pup production at Cabo Blanco in the Western Sahara (González et al., 2002), the Northern Sporades, Kimolos & Polyaigos, and at Karpathos & Saria (MOm, 2007) yielded counts of 25.0, 8.4, 7.9, and 3.7, respectively. […]
[…] Unfortunately, the monk seal breeding season happens to coincide in part with the peak of the tourist season, a coincidence likely to result in making the seals even more endangered than they already are, as I had the opportunity of documenting yesterday in an undisclosed location of the Northern Dodecanese, in Greece. Continue reading “Tourism could help save Mediterranean monk seals, but if unmanaged it will only accelerate their demise”