MEDITERRANEAN MONK SEAL OBSERVED AND FILMED AT CRES ISLAND

The Mediterranean Monk Seal is one of the most endangered
mammal species in seas around the world. Its total population is estimated
at 500 – 600 individuals, most of which live in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Mediterranean Monk Seal was considered extinct in the Adriatic Sea
after the last recorded specimen was killed in the 1960s. Since 2005,
however, there have been a number of sightings of Mediterranean monk seals
in the marine area of the bays of Kvarner and Kvarnerić, specifically,
around the islands Silba and Male Srakane, and at Premantura and Cape
Kamenjak in the south of the Istrian peninsula.

On 24 June 2011, while studying bottlenose dolphins in
the north Adriatic, researchers of the Blue World Institute of Marine
Research and Conservation sighted a Mediterranean monk seal off the west
coast of Cres Island and filmed it with an underwater camera. In their
opinion, it is probably an adult female, 2.30 metres long, that was also
sighted near Cape Kamenjak in Istria in 2010. We are reporting this, because
it is the most recent sighting in the marine area of Primorsko-Goranska
County, and the footage filmed reveals valuable information about the
seal resting in an underwater cave and about its submarine habitat. Visit
the Blue World Web pages: http://www.plavi-svijet.org/hr/news/2011/6/26/sredozemna-medvjedica-na-cresu,
to learn more and to see photos of the Mediterranean monk seal, sighted
and filmed along the coast of Cres Island.