Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 85, January 2009, pp. 1-20. | Page 6

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military threat to the seals is not only apparent in the eastern Aegean, but also in Spain
and Mauritania. Each summer, 1,500 Spanish soldiers invade the tiny island of Cabrera,
just off the coast of Majorca, to practice artillery and small arms fire. By the early 1960s,
the last two monk seals of the island had disappeared; the maneuvers had either driven
them away or they had perished during target practice. On the coast, entire caves had
been sunk and demolished with artillery shells. Other endangered species had also been
killed under the direct impact of cannon fire. The osprey, Eleonora‟s falcon and
Audouin‟s gull, the rarest seagull in