Monk Seal Latest News
3rd June, 2010

Just published: Monachus Guardian June 2010

Just published: the June 2010 issue of The Monachus Guardian, the biannual journal focusing on the Mediterranean, Hawaiian and Caribbean monk seals.

This issue of The Monachus Guardian brings a special focus to the Mediterranean monk seals shot and dynamited in the Eastern Mediterranean since January. What is actually being done to eliminate the single most serious mortality threat confronting the species?

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CURRENT ISSUE:

Editorial: An epidemic of killings.

Hawaiian News: Seal numbers continue to dive…

Mediterranean News: Greece: Alarming numbers of dead seals… Mauritania: Record births at Cabo Blanco… Turkey: Monk seal deaths in the Turkish Aegean… New population size assessment study in the NE Mediterranean…

Cover Story: Markos’ Case: Trauma, treatment, and reflections, by Emily Joseph.

In Focus I: Monk seal killed by dynamite blast in the Aegean, by Anastasia Miliou.

In Focus II: Nefeli’s rehabilitation: methods, results, and challenges, by Emily Joseph.

Perspectives: The world’s two remaining monk seal species: how many different ways are there of being Critically Endangered? by Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara.

Research: Mediterranean monk seal, Monachus monachus, re-sighted along the Israeli coastline after more than half a century, by Aviad Scheinin, Oz Goffman, Mia Elasar and Dani Kerem…

Recent Publications.

The current and back issues of The Monachus Guardian are also available from the Monk Seal Library <http://www.monachus-guardian.org/library.htm>.

8th January, 2010

Critically endangered seal spotted off Israel coast

Press Watch, Haaretz.com, January 8, 2010

Mediterranean Monk Seal spotted near Herzliya. (Shmulik Landau)

A Mediterranean Monk Seal, one of the world’s most endangered and rare animal species, was spotted off Israel’s coast on Friday, in the first such sighting in recent decades.

The seal was seen by the coast of Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, by fishermen, who then alerted Ramat Gan Safari official Shmulik Landau.

Landau attempted to aid the visibly exhausted seal upon his arrival, however the creature eventually slipped back into the water and disappeared.

Members of the Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center arrived at the scene and attempted to locate the distressed seal, but to no avail.

The last sightings of Mediterranean Monk Seals off Israel’s coast were fifty and sixty years ago, at which time neighboring Lebanon reported an estimated population of 10 to 20 of the critically endangered species in its waters. [...]

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