Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 85, January 2009, pp. 1-20. | Page 8

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with the debris, the net fragments can become entwined about their throats and gradually,
over many months as the seal grows, the animal is choked to death in agony.
On the Dalmatian coast of ex-Yugoslavia and its scattering of offshore islands, no more
than twenty seals have managed to survive the onslaughts of mass tourism. Little is
known of the Russian seals, inhabiting the waters of the Crimea, but they are reliably
believed to be extinct. Further west, however, some individuals may still survive in the
ex-Soviet waters of the Black sea, if only because on the Turkish side, up to thirty
animals are thought to be still alive.
Since the monk seal has become so shy and retiring, only one thing can be said with
certainty, and that is that the war against the species and its habitat rages unabated, and
all in the name of progress. As for the sanctuaries that benevolent humankind is willing to
provide for the creature, they are few and far between. Ironically, it was one of the
poorest Third World countries, Mauritania, which first opened a refuge for the seals.
There are two more in Turkey and one perennially due to open in the Northern Sporades
islands of Greece, far away from the eastern Aegean but an important colony, perhaps
holding up to thirty individuals. Other parks are planned for Madeira‟s Desertas islands,
for the Chafarinas of Spain and the Golfo d‟Oresei in Sardinia. But bureaucracy being
what it is, some of these may well open to protect no more than a desolate memory, their
last seals killed before the departments and committees and conferences have written and
sifted through their mountains of paperwork.
It became obvious that saving the monk seal would be one of the most formidable tasks
ever undertaken by the conservation movement. So numerous, so diverse and so critical
were the problems facing this persecuted animal that only a holistic campaign would
have any chance of success. And it would be a fight against time. For decades, its plight
had aroused little more than reluctant platitudes of concern. The monk seal was perhaps
one of the most forgotten endangered species in the entire world. While Europeans were
waging a bitter struggle against the slaughter of harp seal pups on Canada‟s distant,
blood-stained ice-floes, their own monk seals were being allowed to perish in total
obscurity. There was no public outcry, no great media extravaganza, no one willing to
risk their reputation let alone their life for the species.
What then is the cause of this neglect? One reason is the virtually secret triage strategy
which has been adopted by the world‟s most influential conservationists. Swamped by a
seemingly endless series of ecological catastrophes, and facing the extinction of up to a
million animal and plant species by the year 2010, the movement, rather than reform
itself, is now faced with the hideous dilemma of salvaging whatever life it can from the
holocaust and leaving the rest to perish. It borrowed the triage strategy from the Allied
commanders of the First World War who, during the hellish nightmares of trench
warfare, were forced to divide the wounded into three separate groups; those that would
be left to die since they were not worth squandering precious medicines upon, those that
would hopefully survive without any medical attention at all, and finally, those that were
deemed worthy of help. The decisions were pitiless, devoid of sentiment or favouritism.
Even the best of friends could be left to die in slow agony. But in today‟s triage, it is

Gazelle – Number 85 – January 2009