English
Türkçe Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) was spreading all over the coasts in the Mediterranean basin including Black Sea and the eastern Atlantic coasts from Portugal to Senegal in the west Africa until the beginning of 20th century represententing a population in the order of thousands.
However, this rare marine mammal declined very fast in its distribution range mainly due to “hunting” in the first half of 20th century while during the second half of the 20th century, habitat destruction (both degradation and fragmentation) and diminishing of fish stocks due to over-fishing, played the crucial role for the decline of monk seals. Mediterranean monk seals today exist only along the coasts of Türkiye, Greece, Mauritania and Madeira islands with a population of approximately 600. The population in western Sahara represents the true Monachus monachus colony with a compact healthy population living on the open beaches exposed to the Atlantic ocean. However, monk seals in the eastern Mediterranean had to prefer living isolated in very small groups or even alone.
Today, Mediterranean seals survive in two main regions separated from each other;
1. Atlantic population (Mauritania coasts in West Sahara and Maderia Islands of Portugal)
2. Mediterranean population (Greece and Türkiye)
MONK SEALS IN TURKIYE
The biggest population in the world exists in the Aegean Sea. Therefore, responsibilities of Greece and Türkiye are huge for the protection of the species in the Mediterranean.
It is estimated that around 100 monk seals exist in the country while there are 32 to 42 monk seals individually identified through the field studies by different researchers in Türkiye. Considering the world population, this number refers an important proportion. Hence, Türkiye plays an important role for the protection of Mediterranean monk sealMonachus monachus as a world heritage.
Mediterranean monk seals show interrupted distribution ranges along Turkish coasts instead of a continuous distribution range.
Monk seal exists in the following coastal segments in Türkiye;
1. In the Sea of Marmara; Marmara Islands, Mola Islands and northern coasts of Kapıdağ Peninsula,
2. In the Aegean coasts; coast between Gelibolu Peninsula (on the Aegean side) and Behramkale as well as coast between Yeni Foça and Datça,
3. In the Mediterranean; coast between Datça and Kemer, coast between Alanya and Taşucu (Cilician coasts) as well as coast between Hatay Samandağ and Syrian border.
Breeding regularly occurs while monk seal deaths are also observed along in several parts of Turkish coasts.
HABITATS
Mediterranean seals live “along the remote and untouched coasts that have no urban development, or coasts difficult to be accessed by man or far away from human activities, and rocky/cliff coasts preferably having coastal caves or caverns for breeding and/or resting purposes” and it is directly affected from deterioration of habitats.
On the other hand, it is not possible to state monk seals do not exist in the coasts other than above referred coastal types such as beaches or inhabited coasts in Türkiye. It is known that Mediterranean monk seals sometimes go out of the desolate, rocky coasts and for time to time widen their roaming area especially for foraging. And even it is known that they may be observed around sandy or pebble beaches or an estuary of a river, although rarely.
Yet, primary habitat of Mediterranean monk seal is remote and untouched coasts. As they are large marine mammals, they can not survive in narrow ranged habitats. The species can only breed safely in the case of existence of a coastal segment in optimum sizes.
MORPHOLOGY
Mediterranean monk seal is a large marine mammal and its length varies from 2,2 meters to 3 meters and its weight changes between 200-300 kg. roughly. Not longer than 0.5 cm., hairs cover the skins of adult seals intensly. When they are seen swimming on the sea surface, the most outstanding feature is huge head, long whiskers and coal-like black eyes and without ear tufts. There is no huge difference in terms of weight and size between males and females, however, they have characteristic colour distinction. The large size is easily recognized when they are observed lying on shore. There are fore fins on both side of their body and at rear there are back fins in two parts.
black or dark brown. Size & shape of white area on abdomen vary
among individuals.
or nearly white colour. Moreover, on the waist there are scratches made by
males during copulation.
In abdomen region, a white birthmark is seen without exception
and its body is covered with glossy and longer black hairs of
1-1.5 cm. When it is nearly 2 months old, it begins to change
its fur (moulting) and in 2-3 months long black hairs of pups are
replaced with short and glossy grey hairs.
Drawings ©Eduardo Saiz
BEHAVIOUR and BREEDING
FORAGING
Mediterranean monk seals are carnivorous and this is the common feature of pinnipeds (fin-footed animals). Octopuses, fish, lobster are among its food. When a monk seal hunts its prey, especially when the prey is big, it takes them out of water and toss in order to kill prey and eat it in small pieces, eating piece left in mouth and catching remaining piece by swimming after it. It continues in the same way till prey is eaten fully. As the Mediterranean monk seals are mammals, they have lungs and make respiration with air. In sea, they dive into bottom by using air that they take on surface. Mediterranean monk seals usually dive for 5-10 minutes and surface again for short periods to re-breath.
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Mediterranean monk seals are known as shallow water divers compared with other pinnipeds (fin-footed animals). It is known that they dive generally shallow waters less than 100 m. while the deepest dive is 180 meters. From time to time, they are known to take fish from the artisanal fishermen’s set nets. This situation causes competetion which may result in deliberate killing of monk seals by artisanal fishermen.
CLASSIFICATION
Mediterranean monk seal Monachus monachus belongs to subordo Pinnipedia in the animal kingdom. In Pinnipedia (=fin-footed), monk seals are within the ”true seals” family and they live only along Mediterranean coasts and on west African coasts and Madeira Islands in the Atlantic in the world. The systematic classification diagram, which includes the total 34 pinnipedia species in the world, is given below. Hawaiian monk seal Monachus schaunslandi, also considered an endangered species according to IUCN, have a population of around 1.500 and survives in the Hawaiian islands in the Pacific Ocean. Carribean monk sealMonachus tropicalis, one of the 34 Pinniped species, unfortunately disappeared in its range with the last confirmed sighting in 1952. Therefore, now there are 33 pinnipeds left in the world.
REASONS FOR ITS EXTINCTION
You are to wait for months to see Mediterranean monk seals nowadays; but in 1950s it was seen even in the Strait of Istanbul and even they were breeding here. It is a very tragic event when considered that in life span of a human, the Mediterranean monk seals are about to be extinct. In the world, the predator of the other seal species are marine animals for example, killer whales, leopard seals, sharks, polar bears and jackals.
When it is said human, it means that greed and ambition hidden in human activities related with money; spreading along pristine coasts, construction of new roads that facilitate coastal developments, approval of tourism projects in natural bays, marine pollution, deliberate killing of seals (in the past in the form of hunting for their skin and fat), illegal fishing especially by means of trata, purse seiners and trawlers are among the destructive nature of human being. Unfortunately, monitoring of these illegal or unplanned activities are not supervised properly in most cases.
The extinction of the Mediterranean monk seal doesn’t take root from one problem. The five factors play role for the extinction of this rare species along Turkish coasts.
How do these factors contribute the extinction process?
The most important reason for the decrease in the number of Mediterranean monk seal (or even its extinction in certain locations) is the deterioration of coastal habitats. The habitats of the monk seal are untouched and remote coasts that still keep their natural form. In Türkiye, some of such pristine areas have been gradually declining. As the roads are opened along such coasts and construction of the secondary houses or touristic development destroy the natural characteristics and pecualirity of coasts, such remote coastal areas are left by monk seals.
Yalıkavak Küdür Peninsula had been under protection for monk seals in 1990s. Now big pressure towards
whole peninsula is observed.
Moreover; this negative factor not only affects the Mediterranean monk seal but also the arcaeologic sites that has a history of thousands years belonging to ancient civilizations including Phrigs, Ions, Lycians and Carias along Anatolian coasts. Besides, habitat destruction causes the natural landscape to be deformed, the fertile agricultural areas to be devastated and historical values & cultural traditions to be corrupted.
Mediterranean monk seals live in the desolate coastal areas where there are no human activities, which are generally rocky and rugged geo-morphologic character and are mainly state-owned lands.
However, state-owned lands are sold or rented for development or tourism purposes thus there will nearly be no room left for wild life including endangered marine and coastal species including Audouiin’s gull, Eleonarae’s falcon, grouper, posidonia sea grass, sea turtles and monk seals. Besides, it is thought provoking to let the state-owned coastal lands, that are the common heritage of 74 million people in the country, be housed & developed through an unplanned construction & development process, sacrifying also valuable olive and orange yards and other agricultural fields on which hundreds thousands of local people are dependent.
2. Overfishing and / or illegeal fishing:
Aqua products such as several different fish, octopus and lobster consist of foods of monk seals. The fish stock has been decreasing largely because of illegal and/or over fishing methods (trawlers, tratas, purse-seiners, dynamite fishing, spear fishing with scuba dive or torch). As a result, both seals foraging in the shallow seas and small scale (artisanal) fishermen are affected very negatively; the seals can not have enough food, which shall have direct effect on physiology and breeding success of animals while coastal fishermen suffer from lower incomes and their life standards drop.
Unless concrete solutions are found to this problem, monk seals (and other animals on top of food web) will receive great harm or even become extinct at certain locations while fish prices will be higher in the country. If overfishing and illegal fishing continues in this rate, devastation of the marine ecosystem is unavoidable.
3. Deliberate killing:
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Due to the decrease in fish stock, the competition between seals and small scale fishermen has been ascending as they hunt in the same waters. Artisanal fishermen may sometime show great reactions even they suffer small amount of fish losses due to monk seals because they have already lower incomes and poorer.
Sometimes, artisanal fishermen dare to kill monk seals they encounter a seal during fishing because of their intolerance under certain circumstances. Now let’s ask the question for this dilemma; who is the guilty for this vital competetion? the fishermen who kill the seal or the seal that takes fish from the fisherman’s net to survive? In our opinion, not both. In fact illegal trawlers and purse-seiners and also the competent bodies that are insufficient to supervise the illegal and over fishing are the responsibles. Unless the root-cause is not solved the closed circuit problem between artisanal fishermen and endangered monk seals will prevail for sure.
4. Disturbance in monk seal caves (touristic dives, entrance to caves etc.):
The key places where monk seals survive (breed, raise pups, hide and rest) are the coastal caves, either underwater entrance or from surface. In the recent years, seal caves have been disturbed under the tourism pressure and several caves are abondoned by the seals because of the disturbance given by divers.
Cave diving activities are organized by the diving companies especially after 1990′s in Turkiye. Caves are visited to show off monk seals in their caves mainly with u/w entrance, hence, caves may be abandoned by seals due to disturbance. Although it is banned to penetrate into monk seal caves in accordance with the relevant regulation; some diving companies deliberately guide tourists to dive into monk seal caves especially in Bodrum, Marmaris, Fethiye, Kemer, Kaş and Alanya areas. Due to nature of the coastal caves (remoteness and sporadic distribution of the caves as well as difficult locations to reach) in Türkiye, it is very difficult to make frequent patrolling by the competent authorities.
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5. Marine and coastal pollutions:
As a result of the marine pollution specifically the pollution in habitat of monk seals, seals gradually reduce using their habitats which may finally result in abondonement. Actually we rarely face with this problem in the country yet it is potentially dangerous. It is stated that there is also some heavy metal accumulation in Mediterranean monk seals proven by the previous scientific research.
The followings can be given as the examples of the effect of pollution on the species in Türkiye: Gümüşlük Çavuş Island, one of the important seal habitat, an oil pollution occured in 1996. In Sinop Inceburun Cape during a field research, land based pollution were observed (nylon bags, ropes etc.) and though it is rare, it was also observed that ropes or cloth pieces curl the head and neck of the seals. The oil spill happened in Çavuş Island, Bodrum SW Türkiye, affected the habitat of the seals and the tightly curling of the rope around the head of the monk seal named “Dişi korsan” in Foça are examples of pollution. However, pollution has never been a priority threat among the other problems mentioned above.
Kıraç, C.O., Y. Savaş ve H. Güçlüsoy. 1998. Akdeniz fokunun Monachus monachus Önemi ve Türkiye’de Korunması. SAD-AFAG Yayınları. Eylül 1998, Ankara. 21 sayfa + anket. (Importance of Mediterranean monk seal Monachus monachus and its protection in Turkey. SAD-AFAG Publications. September 1998. Ankara. 21 pages + questionnaire. Original in Turkish).
Güçlüsoy H., C.O. Kıraç, Y. Savaş and N.O.Veryeri. 2004. ”Status of the Mediterranean Monk Seal, Monachus monachus (Hermann, 1779) in the Coastal Waters of Turkey. E.U. Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences 21 (3-4): 201–210.”
