wildsingapore news: Rare monk seal colony found in the Mediterranean

Victoria Gill BBC News 31 Dec 10;Scientists have found a dependency of rare Mediterranean monk seals at an undisclosed location in Greece.The species is the world's most endangered seal, and one of the most endangered marine mammals - fewer than 600 individuals remain.Researchers are holding the position of the colony secret to avert having the seals disturbed by human visitors.

t is the solitary put in the region where seals lie on open beaches, rather than fell in coastal caves.Alexandros Karamanlidis, scientific co-ordinator of the Mom/Hellenic Society for the Subject and Protection of the Monk seal, explained that this was the seals' "original behaviour"."It is human interference that has caused the species to retire to inaccessible caves," he told BBC News."So this rate is incredibly important - the seals feel so strong that they go out on to open beaches."The Mom researchers, whose society name is derived from the Latin list of the species, Monachus monachus, have been monitoring and studying monk seals for more than 20 years.This has not been an easy task when most of the animals now alive in areas that are not visible from the water line.By driving the seals into secluded caves, the scientists say, human action has also stirred the amount of seal pups that go into adulthood.Dr Karamanlidis explained: "Because of human disturbance, [the seals] give birth in these coastal caves, [meaning that] more pups die during storms."The act of seal pups born yearly in the new discovered colony on this tiny island is amongst the highest recorded anywhere in the Mediterranean Sea.The squad has placed cameras on the island to read the seals remotely.The area's popularity with tourists has gradually driven the animals away from other beaches, and the scientists hope to break the like thing happening on this island."It's a little island in the Aegean with nice sandy beaches," Dr Karamanlidis told BBC News."So if it remains open to people, the home will get crowded and the seals will start going off again."More than half of the world's remaining monk seals live in Greece.The club is now appealing to the Greek government to form the office of the island where the seals live, and its inshore waters, a marine protected area."The seals only subsist in Greece because we hold these isolated islands that people do not give admittance to," said Dr Karamanlidis."So we're trying to do this a spot where the seals feel secure."