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New monk seal sightings in Italy

— Luigi Guarrera – Gruppo Foca Monaca Italia
Sighting at Giglio

GFM – Gruppo Foca Monaca Italia reports two recent, confirmed monk seal sightings along the Italian coasts.

The first one took place in July in the same area where in 2002 a young monk seal was observed for a considerable time and many photos taken, Metaponto, in southern Italy (Basilicata). Some tourists from Trento saw, not far from the shore, and for about an hour, a couple of adult  seals with a “playing attitude” (probably courtship). Unfortunately they did not have any camera or mobile with camera, but — when interviewed — gave very detailed information about the sighting.

Continue reading “New monk seal sightings in Italy”

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Feeding orphaned monk seal pups

Letters to the Editor

Comments on Turkish NGO’s efforts to substitute force-feeding with hand-feeding
[Two orphaned pups enter rehab in Foça | Foça pups: feeding video]

This is certainly preferable to tube-feeding – if the pups will take sufficient food this way. However, better still would be to enable the pups to suck by bottle-feeding. Have you attempted this? There is a baby’s soft silicone nursing bottle available (Tommee Tippee Nuby natural touch soft flex silicone nurser). This enables you to squeeze the bottle gently with the teat in the pup’s mouth and give the pup the idea of sucking from the bottle. It might be worth a try.

I am pleased to note you kept both pups together – this will have greatly benefited their normal behaviour after release. I am including this info on the Seal Conservation Soc Med monk seal page, rehab section. Could you let me know the pups’ sexes (and their names), whether they were tagged or marked in any way at release, and any information you have on them post-release? Many thanks and best wishes.

— Sue Wilson (Tara Seal Research and Seal Conservation Society)


Cem Orkun Kiraç of the Underwater Research Society – Mediterranean Seal Research Group (SAD-AFAG) replies:

Thank you for your interest in the rescue and rehab of the two orphaned pups; I would be glad to clarify some points and reply to the questions in your feedback in the TMG.

SAD-AFAG and other relevant organizations in the world had been trying to feed orphaned monk seals under rehabilitation without relying on force-feeding for a long time. However, force-feeding proved to be the only feasible technique until this last case in 2011. In our experience, food range changes from octopus to eel and from bonito to grey mullet depending on the different phases of the rehabilitation and care process.

As for the feeding of monk seal pups, since a cow-based milk formula is not advised for monk seal pups, only fish porridge, which is prepared carefully prior to force-feeding, is given to pups through a tube. Fish porridge is not a thin liquid and contains fine particles of fish flesh — although minced well and mixed with water — and therefore easily obstructs the opening of a silicone nurser. Apart from this apparent limitation, monk seal pups also refuse to suckle from the nurser. During the rehab and care process by SAD-AFAG of the two pups named Dilara and Tina, both females, in the Foça Rehab Unit, we tried insistently to achieve this technique in several different ways; however, the pups refused to suckle on the natural touch soft flex silicone nurser in the first week, as we expected. Actually, although the fish is minced thoroughly, the fish flesh particles become stuck and the liquid does not flow. Therefore, even if the pups had desired to suckle the nurser from a bottle, it would not have been possible to achieve a flow of fish porridge. Meanwhile, different techniques were tried including offering fish porridge to let the pups eat directly from an open cup.

Fortunately, SAD-AFAG’s rehab team first succeeded in teaching the pups to suckle the carer’s finger after some time, which finally led the pups to suckle fish porridge from the open cups. They ate very well without any complication and even developed this ability as time passed. We then gradually increased the amount of fish porridge to 1500 gr, on average, consisting of fish and water in each feeding session for each pup, both of which consumed the full amount.

Later in the last period, the pups passed to the live fish eating stage, completing their rehab in 3.5 months. Just before release, the pups weighed 34 kg and 37 kg respectively, and were very healthy and strong so that even blood sampling could be made very difficult due to vigorous resistance exerted against the carers and the veterinarian.

Completing the clinical examinations on site and also analysis of blood, vaginal smear, nose secretion and faeces samples, the Veterinary Polyclinics’ report also proved that the animals had no health problem. Therefore, without hesitation, it was decided jointly by SAD-AFAG and the Turkish Ministry of Environment & Forest to finish the rehab process. The pups were released along the wild coast between Anamur and Gazipaşa, Southern Türkiye on 2 April 2011. The pups were treated in the Foça Monk Seal Rehab Unit so as to bring interaction with carers to an absolute minimum.

Preparing for release, SAD-AFAG decided not to mark the animals in order not to generate curiosity, especially among local people and fishermen, who may otherwise have approached or tried to interact with the pups. SAD-AFAG also avoided mounting any satellite device (transmitter) on top of the head of the animals, reasoning that device and antenna could pose a serious risk of entanglement for the pups in set nets laid by artisanal fishermen. Based on our experience along Turkish coasts, the mortality rate of monk seal pups 4 to 8 months of age due to entanglement in set nets underwater and drowning is high. Therefore, it was considered possible that, if mounted, the antennas of the devices would create an increased risk for the survival of the pups.

Our team, the Turkish Coast Guard boat and the Ministry of Environment & Forest district directorate staff, all working on site, attempted to monitor the pups after the release for around three months. The above organizations, which monitored the site independently, reported no dead seal stranded along the coastline and no live monk seal pups approaching local fishermen or local people, a sign of imprinted pups. Therefore, our judgment is that both pups merged into the meta-population living in the Anamur and Gazipaşa district (Cilicia region) with its remote rocky coasts, cliffs and several suitable caves.

For further information, please visit

http://sadafag.org/english/index.php?bolum=haber&id=199

http://sadafag.org/english/index.php?bolum=haber&id=202

http://sadafag.org/english/index.php?bolum=video-izle&id=17

I hope these replies and clarification are satisfactory, and in case you need further information please do not hesitate to contact us.

— Cem O. Kiraç, SAD-AFAG

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KP2 returns to Hawaii

Media Watch, San Jose Mercury News, 1 November 2011
Coast Guard C-130 Hercules aircraft crew members, from Air Station Sacramento, along with biologists and veterinarians from the University of California Santa Cruz load a monk seal into a C-130 aircraft, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials, Coast Guard representatives and UCSC marine life specialists coordinated the seal transfer to the Waikiki Aquarium in Hawaii. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman David Flores.

A Hawaiian monk seal taken from Molokai after he was found to be nearly blind and interacting roughly with people returned to the islands Tuesday.

KP2 arrived on a Coast Guard flight from California, where he has spent the past two years at a university research lab. Scientists there were examining his eyes and studying his eating habits for research on monk seal metabolism.

The 205-pound seal, which was born on Kauai and briefly lived on Molokai, where he became famous for playing with people at Kaunakakai, will be under quarantine at the Waikiki Aquarium for four to six weeks.

He’ll then move to his new home in the aquarium’s monk seal pool where he will join one more seal on public display. [Continues]

Source: Hawaiian monk seal returns to islands from Calif., Audry McAvoy, Associated Press, San Jose Mercury News, 1 November 2011.

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Cute with consequences

Media Watch, Cute with Consequences, Honolulu Weekly, 28 September 2011

On the brink of extinction, monk seals are seen as a threat by Isle fishers

[…] Since the early 1990s, when sightings of the rare creatures became a regular appearance throughout the inhabited Hawaiian Islands, tourists have flocked to take their pictures. Monk seal images now adorn magazines, postcards, T-shirts and caps. Diligent volunteers erect barrier ropes around sun-bathing seals, track their movements and guard their pups.

Still, not everyone has warm, fuzzy feelings toward the state’s official mammal. In meetings held recently around the state, commercial, recreational and subsistence fishers and other ocean users made it clear they’re running short of aloha for the rapidly dwindling species, primarily because they’re worried about how federal plans to save it may impact them.

“When people get upset over here, they’re gonna kill ‘em, and that’s a fact, bottom line,” testified Kauai resident Kalani Kapuniai at a Sept. 17 hearing on a draft programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) that calls for temporarily moving young seals from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) to undisclosed sites in the main Islands. Two monk seals were shot on Kauai in 2009, “and we were told that there were others that were never reported,” said Carl Berg, a member of Surfrider Foundation’s Kauai chapter. [Continues]

Source: Cute with Consequences, Joan Conrow, Honolulu Weekly, Cover Story, 28 September 2011

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Recovering a species

Media Watch, The Molokai Dispatch, 19th September 2011

Actions proposed to assist monk seal survival

[…] In a hearing about the PEIS held on Molokai last Thursday, community members and fishermen offered their opinion on the proposals. Many expressed concerns about the large amount of fish Hawaiian monk seals eat – fish that they say could be going to feed their families. […]

More than 50 residents attended the hearing, and many testified before NMFS representatives and monk seal researchers. Many offered first-hand experience in encountering seals while fishing. Others were frustrated with the lack of local and cultural representation within the NMFS and in the PEIS document. […]

One of the [alternative] proposals considered by NMFS officials was the development of a facility in the NWHI for the seals, protected from the dangers that threaten their survival. [NOAA Hawaiian monk seal recovery coordinator Jeff] Walters said this proposal was dismissed because of prohibitive costs and logistical challenges. [Resident and Molokai Planning Commissioner Lori] Buchanan said she thinks that alternative should still be considered, as no mention was made of what it would actually cost to carry out this option. [Continues]

Source: Recovering a species, Catherine Cluett, The Molokai Dispatch, 19th September 2011