Athens, Greece (AP) – Panagis gets out of the swimming pool in a rehabilitation center in Greece and recruiting for a delicious lunch: whole mackerel. It was about three months since the puppy struggled in the coastal waters of Cyprus. Soon he will be good enough to go home.
Panagis is one of the dozens of Mediterranean monk channels, or Monachus Monachus, who were cared for by the mother of Greece, a charity, dedicated to the care and protection of the rare marine mammal whose population had declined so dramatically that it had to make it at some point.
Thanks to retention efforts, the seals with the large, round eyes and prominent whiskers now make a remarkable comeback. Almost half of their estimated world population of 800 lives in the Greek waters, where the extensive coastline offers an abundance of sea birds that accommodate women to support their young.
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From almost extinction to recovery
Tight and remarkably fast in the water, the monk seal is a skilled hunter and can consume up to 3 kilograms of fishing, Octopus and squid per day. But it is not dirty from a side -and -ready meal and can crack through fishing nets to steal fish -so fishermen considered them as vermin.
For decades they were hunted, which contributed to a large population between the sixties and 1980s that the International Union for Conservation of Nature of Nature or IUCN to describe them as critically threatened.
When the efforts of nature conservation started in the 1980s, combined with outreach programs to teach the public – and fishermen – “society began to gradually change … and the population began to recover,” said Panagiotis Dendrinos.
Dendrinos, a marine biologist and coordinator of the Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk Seal – or Mom – who has pioneer in the Monachus Monachus Conservation Program, says that the Monk Seal is the only seal species in the Mediterranean and also “one of the rare species of Shame Sea dogs and” “
“To protect an animal such as the Mediterranean monk seal in its natural environment, you should essentially protect the entire marine ecosystem,” he said.
The efforts for nature conservation have paid off and in recent years the species climbed down on the Red List of endangered species of the IUCN to 'threatened'. About a year ago improved one step further, to 'vulnerable'.
A unique rehabilitation
Usually contacted by members of the audience who find an animal in need, MOM specialists tend to, where possible, on location in adult seas, and transport young seals to the rehabilitation center of the organization that transport themselves on the terrain of Athens, on the edge of the Greek capital.
There, the young mammals are provided by veterinarians, a special diet fed to offer them the best food and to sharpen their swimming skills in a swimming pool.
Their caregivers give them names – often after the people they have found – but make sure that contact with people is minimally limited to prepare the animals for their return to the wild.
The young seals usually stay in the rehabilitation center for a few months, until they have sufficient weight and their natural hunting instinct starts, so that they can take care of themselves. They are then tagged so that they can be followed and reintroduced in the wild.
Mother, the only center of its kind in the region, has caused around 40 seals of many and wide, both on location and in his facilities, Dendrinos said.
“This year we had a very pleasant surprise,” he said. A female seal that had been treated and released four years ago was seen in nurses from a puppy.
Aircraft, boats and cars to the rescue
Panagis was found in Cyprus, near his mother's body a few days earlier. Alarmed by the local population, the organization arranged that the seal was flown to Athens.
“Transport is carried out with everything that is available,” said veterinary assistant Nikitas Vogiatzis, shortly after feeding Panagis. “Either by plane, or by boat, or even by taxi. “Konstantina came in a taxi, Panagis by plane, Renos came on a boat,” he said, with a list of the most recent departments of mothers.
With a weight of just under 15 kilograms (33 pounds) when it arrived, it has now reached 3 months old seal more than 40 kilograms (88 pounds). Panagis is almost ready for his return trip home, for which Mama Experts hope it will happen in May.
Back in the wild
Renos-Kort for Renos-Pantelis-Werd found in November on the small Aegean Island of Anafi by a nurse and a military service to which he is mentioned.
The seal puppy was sent to Mama's facility. He received medical treatment and received a special diet until he was old enough to continue to massive fish – the mackerel that Panagis loves.
He recovered and on a cold, sunny February day it was his turn to go back into the wild. Mother staff loaded him in a crate and hit him through Speedboot to the uninhabited island of Gyaros, the nearest protected marine area to Athens.
The release location is chosen “based on the fact that there is enough food, and there is no malfunction by people, which is very important,” said Vogiatzis, the veterinary assistant.
The crate is placed by the water, he said. Dan: “You open the door, you say a prayer and you say,” so long. “
Renos' Krat was dropped off on a beach and the door opened. The young seal sniffed the air timid and waited. Slowly he walked his way out of the crate and then grabbed speed when he sterned his way through the beach, splashed in the sea and was gone.
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Associated Press photographer Thanassis Stavrakis in Gyaros, Greece, has contributed to this report.
