Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Shalom Dear Marmmamers,
We would like to inform you about exciting
news we have from the easternmost part of the eastern Mediterranean basin. In
the last 4 month IMMRAC team has received more than 40
reports, some of them including video or photographs, of a seal sighted in many
locations along the entire Israeli coastline from Ashkelon near the southern
border of Gaza Strip to Rosh- HaNikra at the northern border with Lebanon. The
first photographed report that verified the reports to be of the Mediterranean
monk seal, Monachus monachus, was given on January 7th 2010.
We have consulted with monk seal researchers from Turkey, Greece and Holland
about the photos and the consensus was that it is a relatively young female.
The female has been seen swimming inside Herzliya Marina, and was photographed
sleeping in a small alcove on the sea side of its breakwater, until disturbed.
Other images that we have gotten since this sighting were not clear enough in
order to ascertain whether there are more than one seal along the coast. However
the locations and the timings of some of the sightings suggest at least 2
animals.
Monk seals have not been observed in
the Israeli coast for the last 50 years. In the case that seals are indeed
showing re-colonization attempts, it may indicate a shift in their habitat
or that the colony in the north (south-east Turkey) acts as a nursery as
suggested by Ali Cemal Gucu from Middle East
Technical University Institute of Marine Sciences, Turkey.
Aviad Scheinin, Oz Goffman, Dani Kerem
IMMRAC
– Israeli Marine Mammal Research & Assistance center (http://immrac.haifa.ac.il/)