The Monachus-Guardian — Headlines-News-Articles — 2008-2018
Dedicated to Monk Seals and their Threatened Habitats
This seal, known as “Half”, an adult male who has been monitored since 1997 by PNMS (Parque Natural da Madeira Service), was observed by local people on a small stony beach, its debilitated state apparently due to a severe injury in the neck area. Continue reading “Wounded Madeiran monk seal returns to the sea”
Over recent years, camera monitoring systems have been installed on several occasions in Madeira’s Desertas Islands, yet failed to achieve the desired results.
This year, however, we obtained the first images of monk seals on site using a simple system, comprising an automatic camera.
On 26 October 2012, the system captured the first pup of the reproductive season — barely one day old.
The calf, a female, is healthy and being cared for by two females who share the role of mother. It is thought possible that one of them may have previously lost her own calf.
It is hoped that the initiative, undertaken through the BES Biodiversity award, with the technical assistance of Spanish organization CBD-Habitat, will allow more effective monitoring of monk seals both on beaches and in caves. The system is also expected to prove its value during the current stormy season, which often prevents or inhibits firsthand observation.
By January or February 2013, we hope to have results from the camera system installed inside ‘Tabaqueiro’ — a maternity cave.
Funded by the Portuguese bank Espírito Santo’s Biodiversity Award, Parque Natural da Madeira Service has installed four cameras in the area most frequented by monk seals on land — in Tabaqueiro cave and on Tabaqueiro beach, on the Desertas Islands of Madeira.
The PNMS team was assisted by CBD-Habitat Foundation of Spain, which has been developing and perfecting this method of monitoring the monk seal population since 1994, at the Côte des Phoques in the Western Sahara. The teams have been collaborating on monk seal conservation since 2008, under the framework of the “Action Plan for the Recovery of the Mediterranean Monk Seal in the Eastern Atlantic”, established under the auspices of the Bonn Convention.
The main goal of the Desertas camera initiative is to improve seal monitoring in the nature reserve, gaining a better knowledge of seal behaviour on land, while improving the photo-identification catalogue of this population. Should it prove successful, this monitoring method will be maintained in the Tabaqueiro area but also expanded to other areas that are used or have high probability of being used by monk seals. We eagerly await the next reproductive season — which begins in November — when seals will again use the Tabaqueiro area!
Portugal
The project “Monk Seal — a recovering species in Madeira” of the Parque Natural da Madeira Service was the project winner of the 2012 BES Biodiversity award.
The award is an initiative of the Portuguese bank Espírito Santo in partnership with the Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO) of Porto University and the Institute for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity (ICNB).
Awarded annually, BES Biodiversity is currently the largest Portuguese award for research and business activity in environmental conservation and aims to recognize innovative research projects, conservation and biodiversity management in Portugal.
According to the BES press release, the fifth edition of this award was devoted to the theme “Biodiversity: Research and Conservation” and sought to distinguish conservation research projects with a strong practical component and results. The prize was awarded in recognition of the unique work in preservation and recovery of the endangered Mediterranean monk seal.
With the project prize, 75.000 Euros, the Parque Natural da Madeira Service intends to maintain the solid and continuous work that has been done in Madeira through the involvement of Madeira citizens in the monk seals’ protection, through the surveillance of their habitat and through improvement of the monitoring system by using automatic cameras. This task will link the Parque Natural da Madeira Service and the CBD-Habitat Foundation of Spain, which is already using this system to monitor monk seals in the Western Sahara.
Following her death in late 2008, Madeira’s most popular monk seal, “Desertinha”, will be put on public display as a taxidermic model. The work, by a Portuguese taxidermist and sponsored by Deutsche Bank, was first presented to the public on 17 June at the Museum of Natural History in the Botanical Gardens, Funchal.
‘Desertinha’ gained local fame in 2006 after sustaining a serious injury to the lower limbs, her plight creating a huge wave of sympathy from Madeirans. This resulted in the most prominent conservation campaign ever made in the region [see Seal finds stardom, TMG 9(2): 2006].
Desertinha was first identified in 1993 and was monitored by the staff of the Parque Natural da Madeira Service over 16 years. After being found ill in Madeira in 2008, she was transferred to the Rehabilitation Unit on the Desertas Islands, where she died due to cardiac arrest, on 1 December [see Our monk seal ambassador, ‘Desertinha’ dies in Madeira, TMG 12(1): 2009].
Following display at the Museum of Natural History, the Desertinha exhibit was presented at the Expo Madeira from 8 to 17 July. The work will be put on permanent display at the Whale Museum of Madeira, which will be inaugurated in September this year.
Wonderful photographs of the most endangered seal on the planet The Mediterranean Monk Seal by Nuno Sá off The Desertas Islands archipelago part of the Portuguese region of Madeira where there is a small but growing colony of the seals.
‘Wild Wonders of Europe’ website reports:
“Nuno was privileged to capture the courtship and mating behaviour of this extremely rare marine mammal.”
Wild Wonders of Europe Gallery
Full Story [Madeira News Blog]