A novel approach for Mediterranean monk seal conservation: an artificial ledge in a marine cave E ZGI S AY D AM,HARUN GÜÇLÜSOY and ZAF ER ALI KIZILKA Y A
Abstract The Mediterranean monk seal Monachus mona- chus, categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, com- prises 600–700 individuals in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic Ocean. Habitat degradation is a severe threat to the species. In 2016 and 2017, coastline surveyswere conducted in Gökova Bay, south-west Turkey, to identify suitable monk seal habitat. A significant factor hindering recovery of the monk seal population of this Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands is the limited number of ma- rine caves suitable for resting and/or pupping.Weidentified four caves as possible monk seal resting and pupping caves. An additional cave with all essential features for seal usage except a ledge was also identified. An artificial ledge was built in this cave in July 2019 and seal usage was monitored by camera trap until September
2020.Atotal of 405 camera- trap events were analysed to examine presence of any monk seals on the ledge, and to understand the purpose (resting and/or pupping), frequency of use, sex and age group of any individuals using the cave. One juvenile used the cave four times for resting (420 minutes in total), predominantly nocturnally. This is the first construction of a dry ledge in a cave of this kind for monk seals. The camera recordings suggest this approach could provide habitat for this species in areas where there is insufficient dry protected area on land.
Keywords Camera trap, Endangered species, Gökova Bay, marine cave, Mediterranean monk seal, Monachus monachus, monitoring, Turkey
with a total of 600–700 individuals in three known sub- populations distributed across the eastern Atlantic and the eastern Mediterranean coasts (Karamanlidis & Dendrinos, 2015). The largest subpopulation in the easternMediterranean comprises 350–450 individuals (Karamanlidis et al., 2019).
T EZGI SAYDAM* (Corresponding author,
ezgi.saydam@
akdenizkoruma.org.tr) and ZAFER ALI KIZILKAYA (
orcid.org/0000-0002-3181-079X,
orcid.org/
0000-0002-6107-0059) Mediterranean Conservation Society, Kazımdirik Mah. Ankara Cad. Yanyolu Folkart Time 1 Blok No: 812 Bornova, Izmir, Turkey
HARUN GÜÇLÜSOY (
orcid.org/0000-0002-4147-2587) The Institute of Marine Sciences and Technology, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey
*Also at: The Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey
Received 15 February 2021. Revision requested 6 April 2021. Accepted 27 July 2021. First published online 28 March 2022.
he Mediterranean monk seal Monachus monachus is categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List,
Approximately 100 of these are in the coastal waters of Turkey (Güçlüsoy et al., 2004), 14 in north-west and south- ern Cyprus (Nicolaou et al., 2019) and seven in northern Cyprus (Beton et al., 2021). The species is subject to multiple anthropogenic threats, including deliberate killings and the entanglement of subadults in fishing nets. However, the most significant threats to monk seals in the eastern Mediterranean are habitat deterioration, destruction and fragmentation (Karamanlidis et al., 2019). Suitable marine cave habitats are essential for monk seals
to haul out and rest or raise pups. Here we investigate the provision of artificial habitat for monk seals. There have been trials of a similar approach for other species: e.g. nest- boxes for the European roller Coracias garrulus (Monti et al., 2019), nesting platforms for the white stork Ciconia ciconia (Döndüren, 2015) and man-made snowdrifts for Saimaa ringed seals Phoca hispida saimensis (Auttila, 2015). Gökova Bay in the eastern Aegean Sea, on the south-west Mediterranean coast of Turkey (Fig. 1) has a marine area of 1,851 km2, with diverse marine habitats important for mul- tiple species (Ünal et al., 2015). It comprises both Gökova and Datça-Bozburun Special Environmental Protection Areas (Güçlüsoy, 2015). Datça-Bozburun consists of two peninsulas, Reşadiye (Datça) Peninsula and Bozburun Peninsula, and with a total marine area of 737 km2 it is the largest Special Environmental Protection Area in the Turkish Mediterranean Sea (Güçlüsoy, 2015). Prior to this study, there had been no camera-trap monitoring of Mediterranean monk seals in Gökova Bay. During 2016–2017 we surveyed Mediterranean monk
seal habitat along most of Gökova Bay’s 322 km coastline (Saydam & Güçlüsoy, 2019), and interviewed local fishers and sailors to identify the locations of any marine caves potentially suitable for Mediterranean monk seals to breed and rest. We examined potential caves by snorkelling (Karamanlidis et al., 2004; Dendrinos et al., 2007), and we installed camera traps in the four suitable caves located. In October 2017, we discovered one marine cave without
a dry ledge that was otherwise suitable for seals and could potentially provide protection from inclement weather. An area within the cave suitable for the construction of an artificial ledge, at the end of the cave (Fig. 2, Plate 1a), did not have any marine habitat formations that would require the cave to be otherwise protected (Öztürk, 2019). We con- structed the artificial ledge during 22–24 June and 20 July 2019. The final level of the ledge was designed to be 10 cm above sea level during high tide, to keep the ledge dry in rough weather.
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2023, 57(2), 149–151 © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321001046
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