The Monachus-Guardian — Headlines-News-Articles — 2008-2018
Dedicated to Monk Seals and their Threatened Habitats
Croatian NGO Blue World has released footage of a Mediterranean monk seal filmed on 24 June around the island of Cres, in the Northern Adriatic (via the Italian OggiScienza TV magazine). Having studied the footage, Jasna Antolović of the Grupa Sredozemna Medvjedica has expressed the view that the seal might be a young female that her group has been monitoring since 2009 around the Kamenjak peninsula (Pula).
Jasna Antolović reports that Croation and Italian groups (Grupa Sredozemna Medvjedica; Gruppo Foca Monaca) continue their regular monitoring of the Kamenjak peninsula (Pula), where sightings over recent years suggest that the species is attempting to reestablish itself after a long absence.
On 24 March, GSM member Marko Jelic succeeded in taking a photograph of a monk seal resting on the beach of a cave in the area — apparently a first in the history of the conservation of the species in the Adriatic.
Continue reading “Croatian and Italian groups continue joint monitoring at Kamenjak”
A new postage stamp commemorating the critically endangered Mediterranean monk seal has been issued by the Croatian postal service, Hrvatske pošte, reports Jasna Antolovic, of the Zagreb-based NGO Grupa Sredozemna Medvjedica (GSM). The design derives from photographs taken by Gianni Pecchiaro, a volunteer of GSM, at Verudela, Pula.
Despite earlier conjecture that the species might be effectively extinct in Croatian waters — despite sporadic sightings of vagrant animals from Greece or other areas of the Mediterranean — recent research has convinced GSM that as many as 20 monk seals may still survive in Croatian waters.
The stamp (No. 796 – Mediterranean monk seal) appears as part of a Croatian Fauna series issued by Hrvatske pošte.