Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 133, January 2016, pp. 1-29. | Page 7

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in the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, and other western Mediterranean locations,
including Gibraltar (Wikipedia).
The last sightings of the Mediterranean Monk seal were made on May 2007 and
on April 2010 in Sardinia, where a seal was even photographed, the increasing of
the sightings in Sardinia, suggest that the seal has repopulated the Central
eastern Sardinian coasts, preserved since 1998 by the National Park of Golfo of
Orosei (Wikipedia).

The taxidermied Mediterranean Monk Seal (Monachus monachus, Hermann 1779) at the
Paulus-Haus Museum – Deutscher Verein vom Heiligen Lande in Al-Quds (Jerusalem),
Occupied Palestine. Photo: Prof. Dr. Sc. Norman Ali Bassam Ali Taher Khalaf-von Jaffa.
23.07.2014. https://www.flickr.com/photos/50022881@N00/15215745527/

Cabo Blanco 1997 die off
Cabo Blanco, in the Atlantic Ocean, is the largest surviving single population of
the species, and the only remaining site that still seems to preserve a colony
structure. In the summer of 1997, two-thirds of its seal population was wiped out
within two months, extremely compromising the species' viable population.
While opinions on the precise causes of this epidemic remain divided (the most
Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin – Number 133 – January 2016